


Is there light beyond the storm?

by unluckyloki



Category: Teen Titans (Comics), Young Justice (Comics)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Gen, Getting Together, He has the right to be upset, Internalized Homophobia, Kon comes back and is not amused, M/M, Me and my personal vendetta against Bruce threatening his childnren's SOs, POSSIBLE TW - discussion of Steph's teenage pregnancy and her giving her child up for adoption, Tim accidentally clones a baby for himself and Kon, he does not realize his feelings for Conner until way later, idk how to tag that so if you have an idea - message me, our boy is clueless, please, single dad Tim Drake, supportive Batdad, they are not in a relationship of any kind at that moment, they get together but it's at the very end, yeah cloning them a baby that's 50-50 their dna is not enough to make him realize
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-13
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:54:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 26,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26397520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unluckyloki/pseuds/unluckyloki
Summary: Desperate to get his dead best friend back, Tim mixes their DNA while trying to clone Kon.The result is this - Tim has a baby on his hands, there's Ra's Al Ghul saying how Tim's superpowered heir will rule the world with the man's guidance.Tim takes the baby and runs, and now he has to survive in the wilderness of a farm life in Arizona, pretending to be a single father, and the sudden realizations of the feelings he might have had about his best friend.(or - the clone baby AU everyone's been waiting for)
Relationships: Roy Harper/Jason Todd(background relationship), Tim Drake/Kon-El | Conner Kent
Comments: 135
Kudos: 370





	1. Horror at being left behind

**Author's Note:**

> here's the tag for he Clone baby AU inspiration I've used for this fic [[link]](https://unluckyloki.tumblr.com/tagged/Clone-baby-AU%21)
> 
> this fic has been HEAVILY influenced by this art: [[link]](https://nanigram.tumblr.com/post/143321000502/hoppin-on-that-timkon-clone-baby-au-an-idea-i)
> 
> an answer as to why the baby is named Jack: [[link]](https://unluckyloki.tumblr.com/post/627086342684360704/i-really-like-the-clone-baby-au-too-the-only)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This couple of month have been a bit difficult, and I'm not sure if things are gonna get easier any time soon. I've struggled with writing for so long, I've missed it, I've been miserable that I couldn't write! But I had about zero energy and would barely get a sentence out.  
> Finally, I'm back! I hope that I'll be able to write now, that the turbulence at work isn't as bad, and I'm probably not gonna work 6 days a week this year, so that's at least something, right?😁

**Prologue**

Tim was sure he had killed a man that day. That wasn’t the most surprising thing that had happened.

He was on a bus. There was a fake ID in his pocket, one that said that he wasn’t Drake nor Wayne, and also made him 21 years old instead of 17. He had a ticket to a small town in the middle of nowhere and about 8 hours of travel ahead of him.

There was a baby in his arms, cradled there safely. The baby was sleeping.

The people going further into the bus were giving them odd looks. A lot of those were looks of disgust, directed at the baby. It took quite a long time for Tim's foggy brain to realize that they're afraid the baby might cry all the way to Arizona. 

Tim honestly felt like the likelihood of _him_ bawling his eyes out for the duration of the 8 hour drive was much higher. Jack was a quiet baby. In the few hours of his existence, he cried only once - after the loud bang of the explosion and a building collapsing on them. Tim remembered Ra's Al Ghul's body sprawled on the floor, remembered the smell of blood and chemicals mixing together, and the flames eating up the lab. He remembered stepping over the bloody body and thinking - _I did this, I had a choice and I chose_ this _, and now I have to disappear._

The heaviness of a one-year-old baby - at least in appearance - in his arms was another thing that weighed on his mind. 

Jack was a… Tim didn't know what he was. His son? Kon's son? Their clone? 

It felt surreal, but the result of every one of his choices, the mixture of their DNA, lay in his arms, sleeping soundly. Naming him hasn't been hard, Tim's late father's name was the first thing to come to mind. The guilt that he felt about Jack, the man with whom he nearly, but never had a relationship with, had choked Tim since his father's death. The death that wouldn’t have happened if Tim had been smarter, faster, not so egotistical and thought about his father and not himself! The guilt felt almost as heavy as the feeling he had about the baby in his arms, so he settled on 'Jack' for him and that was it.

Right now, Tim and Jack had a long trip ahead of them. The bus’ engines started up and Tim, curling himself around the baby, drifted off to sleep.

**1.**

_There were 89 failed cloning attempts and Tim was adding more of his DNA to make at least something work._

_Ra's Al Ghul's personal army was encircling the tube with a steadily growing clone._

_The mark was at 1 year 2 month when Tim had gotten pressed with his back against the glass, only two ninjas left standing before him._

_There was an explosion, a small one for now, and some fire from the damaged equipment._

_Ra's was smiling, talking about Tim’s heir bringing the world to its knees with the guidance of the Al Ghuls._

_More explosions, this time bigger and brighter, almost blinding, and the glass behind Tim cracking, letting the green chemicals of the test tube ooze out._

_The Experiment falling out of the tube, Tim scrambling to catch it._

_Sitting on the floor, back to the broken glass tube, green goo in his costume and hair, and a living, breathing baby crying in his arms._

_There were only two of them left - Tim and Ra’s._

_There were flames around the room._

_There was a gun._

_The gun was Rose’s._

_(he took it for… Protection? In case everything got too much and he couldn’t handle it anymore? He wasn’t sure)_

_Tim’s hand with the gun wasn’t shaking._

_The gun fired._

_Ra’s had a gaping hole in his skull._

The bus wavers on the road and Tim wakes up. He and the baby are the only passengers left in the bus.

‘Last stop!’ yells the bus driver, looking at Tim with tired eyes that almost beg him to get out and let the driver finish his work day.

Tim scrambles to his feet, taking the baby with one hand and grabbing his small backpack with another. He steps out into the warm Arizona evening and rubs a hand over his face, trying to wake up properly. The sign on the bus station reads ‘Pleasant Wells’ and it’s rusted over in a few places. This is a small town, one that’s mostly forgotten by everybody else in the state. It’s exactly the perfect town for Tim to hide in.

Unfortunately, other than thinking of a place to escape to, Tim hasn’t thought of anything else beyond that. He doesn’t know anyone here, he doesn’t know where to stay for the night that’s swiftly approaching.

Kon would have laughed at their ‘always prepared’ Robin suddenly being unprepared at all. 

Kon is not here.

Kon is dead.

And Tim is left alone again, by his friends and family, to pick up the pieces of himself.

Tim mentally shakes himself. Mom, Dad, Steph, Kon and Bart didn’t choose to leave him. He can’t blame them.

He sighs and walks out of the station. It’s not a long trek - the bus station’s size is equivalent to some bus stops in San Francisco. There’s a lone tree nearby, and a bench underneath it. Tim puts his backpack on the bench and takes a seat. That’s the moment Jack choses to wake up, squirming in his arms.

Tim tries to shush him, to rock him in his arms, just like he’s seen in movies. Nothing helps - as if trying to make up for all the hours before, Jack starts crying.

Tim panics - he doesn’t know what’s wrong and there’s no one to ask. He reaches out into his backpack and pulls out the first thing that his fingers catch. He pulls out a red and black cloth, tattered in a few places by the fire.

Wrapping up a baby in the leftover of Robin cape is weird, but what’s even more weird is that having it snug around him helps Jack calm down. The baby opens his eyes properly and looks at Tim, focusing on Tim’s face, his expression too serious for a child. Tim can’t avoid eye contact and, the more he looks into the baby’s eyes, the worse he feels.

He is the only person Jack can depend on. It hasn’t been a day yet, and he is already letting the baby down.

The feeling gets even worse when he sees that Jack’s eyes are beginning to water again and his lips start trembling.

‘I’m sorry that we had to run,’ Tim says, feeling like his eyes are about to start watering, too. ' I’m so, so sorry. But if I left you there, they would’ve made you into a weapon! They would’ve used you for your powers and that would’ve ruined your life! I’m sorry it’s me you’re stuck with. If I could, I would’ve left you with someone better, someone who could take better care of you. But there’s no one else, and I’m the one who brought you into this world, so you’re my responsibility.’

Tim tries to shush him, but Jack keeps crying, and Tim wants to cry, too. That’s when he hears a voice from behind him.

‘Aw, what a cute little baby! You are a cute little baby, aren’t’chu?’

Tim is so scandalized that he forgets for a bit about wanting to cry. He turns to see an elderly woman with salt and pepper hair, looking down at Jack.

‘Isabella, for God’s sake,’ says another elderly woman, suddenly appearing to Tim’s right. Her hair is completely white. ‘You are being rude!’

‘Margaret, sweetheart, how exactly am I being rude?’ The woman’s eyes glint with something impish.

‘Bella, you are the love of my life, but you can’t just come up to people and start speaking to their babies. Besides, this young man is clearly in distress.’

The woman with white hair pats Tim’s shoulder.

‘Young man, are you being in distress?’ the first one asks, putting her hand on Tim’s other shoulder.

‘I. I’m-’

‘That is a clear sign of distress,” the other woman, the one that’s called Margaret, if Tim’s not mistaken, clicks her tongue and shakes her head seriously.

‘No, that just won’t do,’ the other one, Isabella, shakes her head in unison with the fist one. Tim is risen to his feet by two pairs of hands on his arms and he’s not sure how that happened. ‘How about we get you something warm to drink? We live nearby, our farm is a just a few minutes ride from the town.’

Tim doesn’t know how, but the two women get him to a truck and give him and Jack a warm blanket to cover with at the back seat. The whole situation feels surreal, but at least Jack isn’t crying anymore.

The farm is further than just a few minutes away - or Tim dissociates enough for it to feel like that, because there’s endless desert he’s seeing out of the window, that doesn’t seem to end. The monotonous landscape almost hypnotizes him, and he closes his eyes just a little, to open them when the car comes to a stop.

‘Here we are, sweetie,’ Isabella’s smiling face appears in front of him. ‘Do you want me to hold your baby while you’re getting up?’

‘No!’ Tim answers, too fast, holding the baby closer to his chest.

Both women step back, allowing Tim some space. He gets out of the car with just about minor difficulties and looks around. It’s night already, and the farmhouse seems so small against the mountains that are seen far away behind it. One of the women, Margaret, is already opening the doors, and Isabella’s walking towards her, beckoning Tim to follow. He does.

These women are elderly, but it won’t be the first time when appearances didn’t align with the strengths people possessed. They could be assassins. Magicians. Shapeshifters. He knows nothing about them, and he followed them home, like an _idiot_. 

Tim walks into the house and his thought process promptly stops. The house looks like a time capsule, preserved from the 70s. From the kitchen cabinets to the egg yolk yellow paint on the walls - everything is painfully vintage. There’s just a few spots that help him believe he hasn’t traveled through time - some modern lights, a huge flat screen TV and two brown leather comforters, set neatly close to each other. 

Okay, they’re not assassins. No self-respecting assassin would live in an aesthetics like this.

‘Take a sit, darling,’ Margaret says, and her dry tone clashes with her words.

‘Does your baby have a name?’ Isabella asks, putting in front of him a cup of hot milk that he hasn't noticed she’s prepared.

Tim looks down at the baby. The baby looks back at him with eyes as blue as Kon's were. 

'Jack,' Tim tells Isabella, not really looking away from the baby. 

'Oh, that's a lovely name,' Isabella smiles.

Tim shrugs and takes the glass, drinks about half of it, suddenly finding himself hungry. Jack starts squirming in his arms, sniffing, making a soft, huffing noise that Tim already recognizes is the beginning of a crying fit.

Tim looks at the cup with milk in his hand. Then, at the watering eyes of a baby in his arms.

_Oh shit._

‘Is he hungry?’ Isabella asks kindly, just as Tim realizes that he hasn’t fed the baby even _once_.

Not the first and probably not the last time that day, Tim feels like crying.

‘Y-yeah, I think so.’

‘We’ve got some feeding bottles left from when we had the baby goats,’ Margaret nods at Isabella. ‘See if they’re in the barn.’

‘Goats?!’ Tim asks, scandalized.

‘Don’t worry, sweetie, your baby’s safe, we have some unused bottles, and I will definitely sterilize them!’

Tim is not sure if he should trust that, but Jack is still crying, so Tim doesn’t really have any alternatives.

When Isabella leaves, Margaret walks up to Tim and looks at him with a critical eye. Tim learns something very important about her then, because she doesn’t beat around the bush.

‘So, what’s your deal, kiddo?’ she asks.

Tim draws back, even if that only takes him an inch away from Margaret. He also curls protectively around the baby.

‘What do you mean?’

‘You’re clearly not from these parts, and know no one in the town. And also, you clearly have no idea what to do with a baby. Why is it with you?’

Tim’s too tired to argue and lie about the first part of the woman’s statement, so he only finds it in himself to say something about the other one.

‘I’ve created him, it’s not like I can turn that back.’

‘Well, technically, you could,’ Margaret shrugs carelessly. ‘Why not give him up for adoption?’

‘No!’ Tim almost shouts, suddenly getting up from the couch. ‘He’s here because of me! Because I wasn’t careful! He’s my responsibility now, there’s no one else who can raise him!’

Tim doesn’t have a chance to panic about shouting at a stranger that welcomed him to her house, because Margaret smiles. He looks at her and realizes that it’s the first time the elderly woman has smiled at him since he met her.

‘You’re not as lost of a boy as I’ve previously thought,’ Margaret nods approvingly.

Tim’s not sure what she means, so he just hugs the baby closer to his chest. Jack’s still crying, though, this time more desperately, with a lot of hiccups. Fortunately, that’s when Isabella comes back with a bottle of warm milk.

She gives it to Tim like he’s meant to know what to do with it, and he just stares at it - one hand occupied with the bottle, the other - holding Jack close to his chest. He’s doing an awful lot of staring this day, huh.

‘Could help if you sit,’ Margaret says, not unkindly. ‘And maybe free your son’s hands from whatever rag you’ve put on him.’

Oh, right. Jack’s whole body is still wrapped in the leftover of a Robin cape, and he’s been squirming a lot - is that why? Tim chooses to think about that and not Margaret calling Jack his ‘son’.

Getting Jack out of the cape takes no time at all, and that’s when the baby grabs the bottle and pulls it to his mouth. Jack doesn’t even finish half of the bottle when his eyes begin to close.

Margaret and Isabella look at each other meaningfully, having a conversation by exchanging meaningful looks alone, the way that couples so often do. Tim would wonder about what they are to each other, but he’s more preoccupied with getting the bottle out of the baby’s surprisingly clingy grip while trying not to wake him up.

‘So,’ Isabella starts carefully. ‘What’s your name, sweetie?’

‘Tim,’ he admits carefully.

‘And how old are you, honey?’

Tim’s mouth opens around 17, but he remembers the fake ID he has in his pocket.

‘I’m 21,’ he lies.

Isabella gasps, clasping her hands together.

‘But you look 17!’

 _Oh, that’s an Enterprise first,_ Tim thinks _, she actually guessed my real age._

‘I’ve always looked younger than I am,’ he says, instead of lying, and looks down at the baby on his lap.

Jack is so tiny. Tim’s palm is enough to support his head, and, when he tries to get a soft curl out of the baby’s face, Jack huffs in his sleep and grabs Tim’s finger with his whole hand. Tim’s suddenly so mesmerized by the way the baby’s chest rises and falls with each breath, so he doesn’t look up to see the two elderly women exchanging another look and Margaret nudging Isabella forward.

‘We have a room that’s free,’ the woman says. ‘You could go there with your baby and get some shut-eye?’ 

Tim finally looks away from the baby and stares at them with suspicion.

‘Why?’ he asks.

‘Do you want me to explain to you why sleep is important?’ Margaret interferes, and her smile is sharp. ‘As my kids like to say, your bags under eyes have bags.’

‘Your kids?’ Tim asks, confused - he hasn’t seen any kids' things laying around.

‘We’ve never had our own kids,’ Isabella explains instead of the other woman. ‘When same sex marriages became legal, we were already way past our prime for parenthood.’

‘Not past our prime for a splendid honeymoon, mind you,’ Margaret smiles at her, as it turns out, wife.

Her smile is the most tender thing, and Isabella answers in turn with a smile as blinding as a sun. The two women link hands.

‘But we’ve been running a community center for LGBTQ youth for quite a long while, and we’ve helped tons of kids. All of them had as a haunting expression as you do.’

‘LGBTQ? But I’m not-’

‘We’re not implying that you are,’ Isabella says soothingly. ‘But this area can be tough for those who do not conform to the norm that some pompous, self-assured assholes had set for themselves. And having a kid while you’re young, and all alone, is not quite a norm.’

Tim nods, not trusting his voice to answer in any other way.

‘I trust it the mother is not in the picture?’ Margaret asks sternly.

Tim shakes his head.

‘He’s got no one else but me.’

‘And you know no one in the town here?’

‘No. I’ve chosen a ticket at random,’ Tim shrugs, and feels blush creep up on his cheeks. Now that decision sounds extremely stupid.

‘Kids these days, you watch too many dramas,’ Margaret shakes her head disapprovingly. ‘What about a job? How are you gonna feed and clothe your kid?’

Tim looks away. He hasn’t risked leaving a digital trail, so he’s just taken as much cash as he could, which wasn’t a lot - he’s spent most of it on his way to the bus station, to get Jack a jumpsuit and some diapers.

‘I thought I’d figure something out,’ Tim says, not really sounding convincing even to himself.

The wives exchange another cryptic glance and this time, Isabella nudges Margaret.

‘I’ll think of something that can be done,’ she allows. ‘But now - off to bed with you! My dearest Bella has prepared a room for you and your son.’

Tim is too tired and too stunned to say no. Also, there’s a heaviness of a sleeping baby in his arms. The thought of forcing Jack to spend the night outside, in the desert, doesn’t let Tim argue or get too paranoid over his sudden agreement to stay with two complete strangers.

The women spirit him up the stairs just as quickly as when they’ve taken him from the station’s bench. Tim doesn’t have time to argue when they expect him to put the baby in the same bed. The wives bid him goodnight, turn off the lights and leave.

Tim looks at the analog clock that’s visible in the moonlight. It’s almost 3 am. He’s kept those women up half of the night and they haven’t even complained.

He really hopes they aren’t secretly evil.

Tim makes a kind-of-cradle for Jack, out of the blankets he finds on the bed. He adds a patchwork quilt and fortifies the walls of the makeshift cradle with it. Then, he puts the baby in the fabric cradle, and puts him in the middle of the bed. Tim himself lays down an arms length away from the baby, staying almost at the edge.

‘I’m sorry your first day in this world was such a mess,’ Tim says to the general direction of the sleeping baby. ‘And for forgetting to feed you. I’ll do better tomorrow.’

His eyes are almost closing, but he murmurs a slurred goodnight to the baby.

Halfway through the night, he wakes up because of huffing sounds and something warm squirming nearby. He opens his eyes to find Jack pressed close to him, having found his way out of his blanket cradle somehow. Tim’s not sure what to do, so he just puts his arms around Jack, hoping that it’ll be enough to keep him in place, and promptly falls asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> help, google is harassing me with ads for baby products and kindergartens, because I googled all of the info about the development of 1 to 3 year olds 😂


	2. what you will feel is so wide and nameless

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tim is slowly learning to take care of the baby he still does not think of as his. But maybe, just maybe, some events will make him reconsider.

Tim hopes that at night, the baby would move away from him, but nothing changes when he wakes up. There's still a baby in his arms, and Tim minutely panics about that - what if he'd crushed him, while moving at night? What if Jack stopped breathing because of Tim flailing in his sleep, and Tim wouldn't have noticed?

Jack forces Tim to focus on him by starting to cry.

‘Food!’ Tim says, jumping to his feet, ‘I remember!’

He’s still not sure if he’s carrying the baby right, but he does take him in his arms and goes down the stairs to look for the baby bottle in the kitchen. 

Margaret and Isabella are there already. They’re wearing matching plaid shirts, even though they style them differently - Isabella has tucked hers into her long skirt, and Margaret has let hers flow over her jeans.

When Tim appears at the kitchen door, Isabella greets him cheerfully, and Margaret silently hands him the bottle. Jack stops crying as soon as he sees it, and seems set on drinking the whole bottle in a matter of seconds when Tim finally gives it to him.

'So,' Margaret starts, without even greeting him. 'We have been trying to use a website for our community center, but our computer is old and I don't understand why it always turns off at the most inconvenient moment. If you could do something with that wretched old thing and the printer, we could say that we have half a job for you.’

‘I know some things about computers,’ Tim nods, ‘It’s half a job?’

'We don’t open the community center every day,’ Margaret shrugs. ‘Fields need to be sowed and barn animals looked after.'

‘I can help with that, too,’ Tim perks up.

‘Do you even know anything about farm work?’ Isabella laughs good-naturally. 

Tim’s mind jumps to Kon. Kon, teaching him how to drive a tractor, telling him about the animals at Kent’s farm, laughing at him for being scared of a cow. 

‘A little,’ Tim says, his voice wavering.

Helpfully, Jack takes the attention of the wives away from him by throwing the baby bottle to the floor. All three of them stare down at the floor, and Jack gurgles happily.

‘I think that means he’s done,’ Margaret laughs. ‘Clean up after him and we’ll go get a look at the center and your new job there.’

It takes some time to understand where to put the baby - while putting him on the couch, Tim finds out that Jack can sit - and to clean the bottle. Isabella brings a long piece of cloth and helps Tim arrange it into a sling, explaining to Tim that her mother used to do this with all of Isabella’s younger siblings.

‘Your baby is going to be too big to be carried like that soon enough,’ she smiled, running her fingers through Jack’s curls. ‘How old is our little Jackie?’

‘One year and three month,’ Tim says, daring to pat Jack’s head, too - by the time they’ve wrangled him into the sling, Jack has fallen asleep.

‘Oh, how delightful!’ Isabella gasps, ‘You won’t even notice how the time passes before he starts talking!’

Thinking about the time passing and Jack growing makes Tim uneasy. What is he going to tell him when Jack asks the inevitable question about his parents? What if he wants to know more about Tim’s past? Should Tim invent an alternative past to tell him? Should he tell him nothing?

Margaret urging them to move brought the relief of not having to think for a while. Staring out of the car’s window and at the dessert.

The little town looks starkly different at night - like an ordinary little town and not a place of doom, as it felt to Tim when he’s just arrived. There are no buildings higher than three stories, and the little of trees that the climate allowed was well kepts. There aren’t that many people outside, which can be understood - it’s unbearably hot.

‘So, what do you think about Pleasant Wells?’ Margaret asks, a sly smile on her lips.

‘This place seems...pleasant,’ Tim answers carefully.

Margaret finds his answer funny and laughs, throaty and loudly. Isabella does not share her mirth.

‘This place wasn’t so pleasant when we just came here,’ she says flatly. ‘It was in the 70s, you see. And a little place like this had a very, very rich selection of bigots. Well, they were very brave in their… Sayings. Up until one of them made a remark about me in front of my dear, and Margaret had beaten him into a bloody pulp for that.'

Tim can’t help the amused snort that escapes him. Isabella looks proud and Margaret looks pleased, but then she turns to Jack, who’s already woken up from his nap and started looking blearily around him.

'Violence is not the answer,' Margaret says to Jack seriously. 

Tim laughs at Jack's lost expression and puts his hand on top of his head. His palm covers the baby's head completely. 

Jack’s hair is really soft. Tim maybe understands why Isabella liked running her fingers through the baby’s hair so much. It seems especially nice that Jack seems to like the contact, too, and he doesn’t even try crying.

‘Aww, look at you two, father and son, such a picture!’ Isabella coos. 

Tim doesn’t correct her, even though he is reminded yet again that the baby is more Kon’s son than his, with the inhuman-blue of his eyes that's clearly visible if you know what to look for, and the curls that Kon tried cutting off to be less like Superman, when their relationship was at its rockiest and Superboy was trying his best to distance himself from the imposing figure of the perfect superhero.

The wives seem to notice Tim's grimness and share another of their private looks, but Tim's happy that they let him be. They walk to the community center in silence. 

Isabella tries to open the door with her key, but it turns out that it's already open. 

'Someone must be in here already,' she tells Tim cheerfully. 'Maybe you'll meet some new friends!' 

The building is old and in desperate need for renovation, but it's obvious that it's been cared for with love. It's clean, the old furniture is shining and there's a dozen or so rainbow-colored posters. In the right corner of the hall Tim sees the computer Margaret mentioned - an old thing with a huge vintage monitor. The printer nearby is an old monstrosity taking up all of the table.

'This is our Bessy,' Margaret says affectionately, patting the computer monitor.

'We named her after our first cow,' Isabella explains, laughing.

Ma Kent's favorite cow was named Bessy. Kon was the one to wake up the earliest, so he'd always feed her in the morning. 

Tim forces himself to smile. 

'I'm not even sure if computers like this one were around when you were growing up,' Margaret frowns, almost to herself. 'Maybe you haven't even seen them.' 

'I'm young, but not that young,' Tim snorts. 'I'll figure it out.' 

He proceeds to do just that, taking a seat at the table and turning on the computer. He's left blissfully alone for the next few minutes. He even starts humming to himself, taking the old Windows system apart and nearly rebuilding it, to get rid of the glitches.

Computers are easy. Creating and building has always been good for him, he's understood engineering better than socializing.

Tim isn't allowed a lot of time to relax, because a man approaches their group. He’s young, maybe not that much older than Tim, and his shoulders are broad and his skin is a warm olive tone.

‘Timmy, sweetie, meet our famous chef!’ Isabella explaims, her hands flying up to hug the man, even though she’s only tall enough to hug him around his waist.

‘Stop it, Tia,’ the young man laughs. ‘I’m just a baker. Name’s John!’

He extends his hand for a handshake and that’s when he notices a baby staring at him from the sling. Tim returns his handshake, finding a way around the sling.

‘I’m Tim,’ Tim repeats, trying to avoid questions about the baby in his arms.

He fails at that almost immediately.

‘What’s the little guy’s name?’ John smiles.

‘His name’s Jack,’ Tim says, trying to finish the conversation at that.

‘Doesn’t little Jackie look exactly like his daddy?’ Isabella coos, patting Tim’s and Jack’s heads simultaneously.

‘Oh,’ John says. ‘I, um. Your baby is very cute!’

Tim forces a smile and drops it as soon as it is acceptable to do so.

‘So, you’re a baker?’ he asks instead, trying to change the topic.

‘Yeah, I’ve inherited a bakery from my Abuelita a while ago. It’s the only bakery in the town, you can’t miss it. Swing by anytime, I’ll treat you to some great pie!’

Tim doubts that the pie is going to be any better than Martha Kent’s. But he agrees and nods and talks to the guy a bit more, for the sake of propriety. The guy obviously notices that Tim’s not really into conversations, so he backs out carefully and finally leaves Tim to his work.

Jack starts stirring in the sling, and Tim gets him out of it to let the baby sit on his lap. Tim bounces him on his knee and gets lost in his work.

Margaret arrives some undefined time later and pulls Jack’s fingers out of his mouth.

‘You’re lucky your kid’s so quiet,’ she smiles wryly, ‘but you’re gonna have to pay more attention and probably buy him at least a few toys to chew on.’

Tim looks at Jack and his jumpsuit, the one and only he’s ever had.

‘I think I’ll need to buy much more than that,’ he sighs.

‘Maybe not all that much. Me and Bella made a few calls this morning, and we’re picking up a crib and a few more old things all around the town. But diapers, of course, are on you.’

Tim clutches the baby to his chest and thanks her, but Margaret just swats at him, telling him it’s nothing.

‘The townspeople are moved by a story of a young single dad,’ she explains.

And Tim is completely terrified of what that statement means for him.

***

The donated stuff took care of most of Jack’s needs. The following days, Tim had to meet so many people he wasn’t even sure how all of them fit into the small town. They cooed at Jack and complimented Tim on his son. The word still makes Tim uneasy, but he has to pretend he’s okay with it for the baby’s sake.

Jack is a fast growing boy, as almost everyone around Tim tells him. In just a few weeks, Jack is already pretty much used to the house and crawls around it so fast Tim sometimes can’t even catch up. Jack starts walking soon after they install childproof locks on all of the cabinets and they have to re-install them again. Margaret mutters a lot about it, and Isabella laughs and coos to Jack in Spanish.

Isabella and Margaret are fantastic, he has to admit. He's never been around a same-sex married couple - honestly, if he really thinks about it, he hasn’t really been around any healthily married couples at all, with his parents always busy with work and Bruce being single. The way the wives treat each other is so sweet it often leaves him embarrassed.

‘Bella, my dearest, are there enough warm blankets?' Margaret asks as a month passes and the weather inevitably changes.' The night promised to be chilly.’

‘Isn’t it good that I have you to warm me,’ Isabella grins, putting her hand on her wife’s hip. 

She smiles beautifully, her eyes glimmering. Margaret blushes and Tim, who's sitting by the baby chair, feeding Jack, blushes too. He averts his eyes, feeling like he's intruding on something intimate.

But the wives are never too shy to show their affection to each other. From the snippets of conversations and from when Tim gets too curious and asks, he finds out that they've been together for almost 45 years, and have been childhood friends before that. 

'She's always been my best friend,' Isabella laughs, kissing her wife's cheek and pressing closer to her. 'It just turned out that she's also been the love of my life all along.'

'You're still my best friend,' Margaret replies, kissing both of her wife's cheeks. 'It's just that you're also very attractive and I can also kiss you.' 

Tim blushes and laughs at them - their love infects anyone who sees it with happiness. He's never seen a relationship so pure, so loving. There is no doubt that Margaret and Isabella are each other's soulmates, once and for all. 

With Tim's risqué, as per some of the elder locals' opinion, status as a young single father, there's not that many places he frequents in the town. It's not like the whole town is against him, not at all. But the population is small, and barely any young people are still here, most of them having left for jobs in bigger towns. Aside from Tim, there's only a handful of people younger than 60.

The community center that Margaret and Isabella run fills with teens and tweens by the end of the week - the queer people from almost all of the nearby places come to Pleasant Falls for support and for the community of people who are just like them, knowing well the limitations of living in small, rural towns. After a few meetings like that, Tim feels at home among the company of ‘the queers’, as John, the baker, insists on calling the assorted lot of people.

Tim spends the weekends at the center. Tim lives with two lesbians who are the only constant in his life, aside from the baby he spends most of his time on.

That’s probably why he gets those strange dreams.

The first one isn’t very unusual, he’s gotten plenty of them before - there’s him, there’s Kon, everyone’s alive and happy.

But then?

It escalates.

With every new night, the dream makes Tim shiver in anticipation, buzzing with energy. Kon gets closer to him, bit by bit, standing near, almost real, almost an arm's length away.

And then, he dreams of Kon’s hands. They do things to him that make him feel taunt and hot, and he wakes up with a moan on his lips. As soon as the fog of pleasure lifts off him, the good feeling in his body swiftly changes to paralyzing dread.

Kon’s his _best friend_ . His best friend - who is _a guy_ ! His best friend whose kid he cloned in the lab and who is _sleeping in his crib_ right across the room!

What the hell is wrong with him?!

Tim feels like he would’ve thrown up, if only he could move.

Instead, he curls in the bed, crying a little, feeling ashamed and dirty.

Next evening after that, Tim drinks a pot of coffee to keep himself awake. He doesn’t want a repeat of yesterday - he’s already spent the day with the details of the dream popping up in his mind unprompted and unwelcome, in the middle of the most mundane tasks. 

He wants this to stop. He wants everything to go back to normal. He wants to stop having these horrible, disgusting thoughts about his dead best friend.

Tim’s feeding Jack before his bedtime, when another change knocks him off balance. As usual, Jack pushes the baby bottle away when he’s finished. Tim’s already used to catching it, so he puts it aside, to be washed later. He picks Jack up, telling him that it’s time to go to bed and explaining their routine.

That’s when Jack looks up at him and says: ‘Da!’

Tim freezes. Jack giggles. Margaret, who’s been in the corner of the kitchen all of this time, grins at him and is about to say something when she notices Tim’s expression and frowns.

‘Da!’ Jack says again, almost jumping in Tim’s arms with glee. ‘Dadadadadada!’

Tim feels tears dripping down his cheeks. He’s drowning in the feeling of complete and utter dread - because, he doesn’t deserve this. He doesn’t deserve Jack and he doesn’t deserve this word.

At the corner of his eye, he notices Margaret approaching him, and, before she has a chance to even open her mouth, he thrusts Jack into her arms and _runs_.

Jack starts bawling as soon as Tim exits the kitchen, but Tim’s legs still carry him outside. He collapses at the porch outside, and it’s an interesting type of torture - from the steps he’s sitting on, he can still hear Jack crying desperately in the house. Having the doubtful benefit of being the adult in this situation, Tim can cry much more quietly, covering his mouth with a hand and hugging himself with the other one, curling forward to try and keep in as much noise as possible.

The sound of Jack’s cries moves away - to the bedroom, Tim presumes. He's not sure how much time passes, but Jack's crying stops and Margaret joins him on the steps. 

'What's going on with you?' she asks calmly. 

Tim's suddenly very grateful to the fact that Isabella went out for the day, for her monthly game nights with her friends in a nearby town. He doesn't think he'd survive her disappointed gaze. 

'You haven't been yourself lately,' Margaret adds, and it almost sounds gentle. 'What's going on?'

Tim was sure he had no more tears left. He was wrong.

'I- I think-' he stutters. There's more tears and he tries to wipe them off, and adds in a barely distinguishable whisper, 'I think I was in love with my best friend.' 

'Oh?' is all Margaret says, urging him to continue.

'Y-yes. He. He's. He's dead,' Tim stutters and has to stop a few times to hiccup. 'He died in the attack in San Francisco two months ago.'

'Oh, sweetie,' Margaret uses a word that Isabella calls him frequently, but Margaret barely ever does. 'I'm so sorry.' 

She tries to put her hands on his shoulders, but Tim shakes them off violently.

'No!' he almost yells. 'No, I don't deserve your pity! I'm a horrible person! All of this is horrible!'

'Is this because he's a man? When you came here, you said you weren't -' 

Tim doesn’t let her finish.

'Jack is his,’ he confesses something that’s been choking him for weeks. ‘He’s more his than mine, and I. I don’t. I don’t know what I’m even doing! What is wrong with me?!‘

Tim notices that he’s gripped his hair painfully only when Margaret tries to carefully take his hands away from it.

‘There is _nothing_ wrong with you,’ she says firmly.

‘But there is! I’ve got _his_ kid! Oh my god, what was I even thinking?!’

Another surge of panic almost swallows Tim whole, but Margaret doesn’t let him curl up into himself - instead, she guides him to lay his head on her lap. She cradles her fingers through his hair soothingly and lets him cry into her overalls.

‘Do you still mean all that you said the first time we met?’ Margaret asks, when Tim has no tears to cry anymore. ‘That there's no one else who can take care of the baby and that you’re planning to do that?’

‘I didn’t lie,’ Tim says, his voice hoarse. ‘If I had anybody else who could do this instead of me, I would have given Jack to them.’

‘So I don’t really see what changed, then. You’ve decided to take care of this kid and that’s what you’ve been doing this past month. You’ve fed him, bathed him, didn’t sleep with him when his teeth started growing. You talk to him constantly and barely ever let him leave your sight. Yours or your friend’s, this kid loves you more than anything else in the world, because you’ve made such an effort to be with him.’

‘But,’ Tim says, getting up from her lap to face her fully, ‘If I had a crush on _him, o_ n my best friend, isn’t it. Weird? Creepy? That I have his kid now?’

‘Do you mean it to be creepy?’ Margaret asks, raising an eyebrow at him.

‘No!’

‘Then it’s not. I’ve lived quite a while on this earth and I can see that you’re an honest young man. You love your kid - sorry, your friend’s kid. We could stop referring to him as your son if you want to?’

‘No, it’s fine. I’m his parent in his birth certificate, it’s better if it stays like that.’

They stay silent for a while and Tim wipes his tears.

'Margaret?' he finally says timidly. 'Will you promise me not to tell Isabella? Please? I don't want her to think less of me.'

'I promise you she wouldn't. Your actions speak for themselves, even if you don't see it like that. But okay. If you need me to, I promise not to tell her.' 

'Okay,' Tim nods. 

He suddenly feels bone-deep tired, slumping forward under the heaviness of the day. Margaret squeezes his shoulder and gets up. 

'Off to bed with you, young man,' she says strictly. 'It's late and we're going to the market two towns away tomorrow. You're expected to attend as well, of course.' 

Tim nods and goes to his bedroom. 

Jack's crib is in its usual corner, but Tim stops in his tracks as soon as he sees it. He tiptoes towards it and looks into it to see Jack. The baby's sleeping, but his face is screwed in a disappointed grimace. Tim reaches out to stroke Jack's frown with his thumb.

Tim doesn't know what he expected, but, of course, that wakes the baby up. Jack opens his eyes and, as soon as they focus on Tim, he reaches his tiny, chubby hands towards him. Taking the baby up in his arms is almost second nature for Tim now, and he does it exactly as Jack starts huffing in the way he usually does before crying. 

'Do you know that Isabella says that you sound like an angry hedgehog when you're like this?' Tim says, stroking Jack's cheeks in a way he knows the baby likes. 'I don't know where she got that information from, though.'

Jack calms down as Tim keeps rocking him in his arms. The movement seems to have an effect on Tim, too, because he feels sleepy and barely able to keep himself on his feet. Against his better judgment, Tim takes the baby to sleep with him in his bed.

'I'm sorry for today, I f- hecked up,' Tim whispers to Jack who's already fast asleep on top of him. 'I made you cry and I'm so, so sorry. I'll try to be better for you, I promise.'

Tim falls asleep and does not dream of anything at all.

***

The next morning the wives wake him up at an ungodly hour and Tim packs a backpack with Jack’s things and gets into the car, to try and sleep some more there. The elderly women are taking them to a harvest festival that’s held in the area every fall - the place promises to have a farmer’s market, food and craft vendors and activities for all ages. Margaret and Isabella attend as a part of the farmer’s market, bringing goods from their farm. They persuade Tim to leave Jack to play with the other small kids in the kids corner that’s been arranged for them, and Isabella has to drag Tim away from the nanny that works there.

Tim’s never left Jack alone before. But Jack seemed happy to be around other kids, even though he was unsure how to act around them at the beginning. But still - Tim worries so much and is so unfocused that he’s not much help to the wives, and the women send him back to Jack after half an hour of ‘looking at his miserable face’ - as Margaret puts it.

As he approaches the playpen set up in the corner, two things happen - first, he realizes that Jack’s on the verge of getting out of it, because there’s no other children and he must’ve gotten bored. Second - that the horse that’s been drawing a mini-carriage carrying a few bored tourists is gaining speed. Steadily. And it doesn’t seem to stop.

In just a few seconds, screaming starts. The people who were in the carriage jump out of it, even though it doesn’t seem safe at that speed. The horse doesn’t stop. It’s closing in on the kid’s corner and the nanny is distracted and Jack’s still latched to the wall of the playpen, trying to get out.

Tim launches himself forward, muscle memory working wonders even though he hasn’t trained much these past few months. He gets to Jack just on time and expertly backflips out of danger, his baby safe in his arms.

(Dick would’ve been proud. Or maybe not, if Dick knew about what Tim’s done while protecting Jack in the labs.

There’s a calamity around, someone stopping the horses, but Tim doesn’t pay any attention to that. He only pays attention to the baby in his arms, making sure that Jack’s okay.

And when the man responsible for the horses runs up to him, Tim doesn’t even let him open his mouth. Tim starts yelling - how dare the man be so uncareful, how dare he endanger Tim’s son? By the time Margaret and Isabella come, Tim’s made the owner of the horse cry.

‘I’m so sorry, sir, I’m so sorry for your son!’ the man cries as Isabella leads him away.

‘You better be,’ Tim hisses, as Margaret drags him into the opposite direction.

‘You didn’t have to go that hard,’ Margaret laughs.

‘I did! That horse nearly killed my son!’

Margaret stops. She looks Tim in the eye and grins.

‘What?’ Tim frowns.

‘What did you call Jackie just now?’

Tim blinks, astonished. He has just called Jack his son, hasn’t he?

That’s what he is, isn’t he? Tim’s been taking care of him. Tim loves him and wants to see him grow happy and healthy. Isn’t that enough?

‘Jackie’s my son,’ Tim says carefully, to confirm it to himself as well.

‘That’s good to hear,’ Margaret nods.

Tim nods, too, and presses the baby closer to his chest.

***

A year passes quickly. Tim celebrates his real 18t birthday in secret and Margaret and Isabella throw a massive party for Jack’s second birthday. At two, Jack already speaks quite well for his age - at least, that’s what the townspeople tell Tim when they meet him and Jack in the town. There’s so many people eagerly waiting for their weekly trips to the shop, just because they want to talk to Jack and coo, that Tim feels intimidated by their excitement.. 

Tim’s settling down himself, too. He knows most of the people here now, and he’s slowly making friends - he visits John in his bakery to buy bread for the farm, and can’t help but stay to talk. It’s nice to have someone closer to his age to talk to.

When a party comes to the community center, a celebration of 10 years of its existence, Tim sticks closer to John. They talk and drink some punch and, at some point during the evening, John kisses him.

‘I’m not looking for a relationship right now,’ Tim says, when they break the kiss.

‘I’m not asking you to,’ John says. ‘But we could be friends. With some benefits, if you’d like?’

Tim considers that. He doesn't think it’s something he could answer right now, but he believes it's worth consideration.

‘I can promise to think about it,’ Tim says. ‘ But you gotta know that I've never kissed a _guy_ before.’

‘Do you wanna be kissing me right now?’ John asks.

Tim sinks his fingers into his hair. 

‘Yeah. I _really_ wanna.’

At home, Margaret and Isabella give him _looks_ as he’s preparing Jackie for bed.

‘If you ever wanna have a... _Sleepover_ somewhere,’ Margaret says, nor looking at him, but grinning. ‘We’ll take care of Jackie for the night.’

Tim wants to say no to that, deny what they’re saying, but then he reconsiders.

‘Okay,’ he agrees, blushing a little.


	3. You must go now;

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They find Tim.  
> They lose Tim.  
> Kon meets Jackie and is about to make fun of his best friend for becoming a father so young.  
> Then, it's suddenly not funny anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am alive *raises from the ashes like Mushu in Mulan 98*
> 
> For all who's still here - thank you! I hope you still remember what the story is about 😂
> 
> POSSIBLE TW - discussion of Steph's teenage pregnancy and her giving her child up for adoption (very briefly in this chapter, but it's here)
> 
> P.S. - I forgot to mention how much @dianaraven and @unseenunknownunhear 's support means to me!  
> These 2 people had helped me through this chapter tremendously, and I am forever grateful to have such friends!

The two years after Tim Drake’s death are the craziest in Jason’s life.

It starts when the previous Robin dies in a fire in the labs hidden in the deep underground of San Francisco.The reason why he was there in the first place is still unclear - the labs burned down to ash and Wonder Girl, the only person who knew about them, had a nervous breakdown when she found out, and had been taken to Themyscira to recover.

Jason remembers being shaken by the news. He was barely around at all and didn't really know the kid, aside from a few assassination attempts he's tried on him. But by the time the fire happened, Jason had already had Kory and Roy, and his eyes barely glowed that lazarus green anymore. He was shocked at his own reaction, how he'd been left dumbfounded and barely able to do anything for a few days after. He didn't really know the kid, but he'd been  _ stupidly _ sure that Tim was the kind that always bounced back. He'd survived a ton of his friends dying, the multiple rogues being personally against him, and the severe beating Jason gave him - how could a simple fire have taken him? 

The more Jason thought about his few interactions with the now-dead Robin, the more horror took over him. He's beaten up a  _ kid _ , Tim was barely over 15 back then, wasn't he? And Jason was a grown ass adult, twice Tim's size!

The realization of his past sins never quite hit so hard. Maybe that was why he finally agreed to see the shrink Roy and Kory so adamantly insisted on. The therapy appointments became a stable routine in his life, and that's when Bruce, the fucking asshole, decided it was best to go and die. As if Jason's progress with mental health needed being checked!

Jason is still honestly surprised by how miserable the Old Man's death left him. That may have been the reason that pushed him towards a strange and quite disturbing idea - to reconnect with His Majesty Robin the First. 

Jason remembers how surreal calling him was, how he wasn't even sure if Dick Grayson would pick up, but the awkward conversation between them did happen, and after that an awkward meeting followed. They drank a few beers, talked about what may be and carefully avoided the topic of what was. Over the course of the next few months after that, Jason had been dragged into the drama that Batman's and Bruce's death left. He hadn't noticed himself how deep he'd gotten into it until he was being asked to synchronize his regular patrol routes with the new Batman and Alfred informing him that Damian was asking if Kory would join them for the weekly family dinner.

Since that day, Jason has made it his mission to make Dick loosen up a little and to tease Damian, because the kid desperately needed some good ol’ big brother bullying. To achieve these two very important objectives, Jason has made his visits to the manor a routine, which forced him to re-learn the place all over again, getting used to all of the changes that had taken place in the monstrous house during the years he was... away.

There are new rooms, new dents in the walls, new books in the library, some vases broken and replaced by new ones. There is a room three doors down from Bruce’s, exactly after the room that used to be Jason’s. 

The doors to both of those rooms are now closed, however, for different reasons.

There is also a huge portrait of Tim that Bruce, in his fucked up kind of grief, had commissioned some time before he died. The portrait is gloomy and stupid, but, sometimes, Jason can’t help but stand in front of it, thinking - with Tim in the house, would the things have been different? Would Tim have been even more of a brat than Damian, or could have they found an understanding?

He knows that Dick, too, stops at the portrait sometimes. 

They never talk about it.

The next unexpected thing happens around half a year after Bruce's death - the superhero community gets shaken by some miraculous resurrections. Impulse, the youngest of the Flashes, comes back, followed by Superboy. As everyone's happily welcoming them back, Jason tries really hard not to be bitter. He wonders, just what if he had been welcomed like that, how different his life could've been now?

He doesn't have much time for the brooding regrets, because the next time he visits the manor, Superboy crashes through the windows in the sunroom, eyes blazing red, demanding answers. His voice roars through the halls, asking for Tim, demanding to know where they hid him, what kind of an undercover mission made them fake his death.

Damian sprints away, but the Kryptonite he runs off to retrieve is not necessary - because, when Superboy hears Dick's soft 'sorry' and looks into his eyes, he understands they're not lying.

The kid collapses to the floor, and Dick sits down heavily beside him. He puts a hand on Superboy's back, as the kid shakes.

'But I'm here,' Superboy sobs, 'I'm back, why isn't he here?!'

A superpowered meltdown is something Jason has never witnessed before, and hopes to never see again. Superboy's powers are obviously unstable, and they're throwing things around the room, crushing and breaking and tearing apart. But, surprisingly, none of the violent power waves touch the people that are in their way. 

When Damian sprints into the room with a kryptonite ring at the ready, Jason simply picks him up and forces the ring back into its box. He leaves the room, carrying the angrily screaming brat out. 

Dick stays with Superboy, as the kid howls in pain.

Alfred meets them at the door and just nods for Jason to follow. Damian stops promising bloody murder to everyone in the room only when they reach the kitchen and Alfred distracts him with freshly baked cookies and a glass of lavender milk. Only then Jason realizes how shook the kid is - 10 minutes later, Damian’s still sitting in Jason’s lap, where he was forcibly put to make sure he doesn’t make a run towards the room where Grayson’s still dealing with a superpowered teenager having an atomic meltdown.

God bless Alfred and his cookies, and also the aura of total disapprovement of any misbehavior that keeps both Jason and Damian from starting a fight.

When Dick finally joins them, Superboy is behind him, his eyes red from crying. The kid looks empty, tired in a way a kid his age shouldn’t be, his head hung. There’s a blanket that Dick must have put on him hanging off his shoulders, and it makes Superboy look even more miserable.

‘I’m sorry for making such a mess,’ he rasps somewhere into Alfred’s direction, his voice unsteady.

Alfred, the embodiment of all that's good and right in this world, simply shrugs. 

‘The sunroom could use some redecoration,’ Alfred says, setting up tea and cookies for two more people. 'Do take a seat, Master Conner, you might benefit from some hot tea.'

Superboy nods obediently and takes a seat at Jason's right. The kid takes the cup automatically, almost like a robot. After taking a few sips, he turns to Jason. 

'I'm sorry,' he repeats,‘my powers are wonky right now. I thought I heard his heartbeat.’

Jason looks into Superboy's hollow eyes and thinks that he does not envy him anymore.

Jason turns away to see Alfred with grief written all over his face, and the expression is so open and so unusual for the old butler that, suddenly, Jason is overtaken by a need to be anywhere but in this room.

‘It is understandable, my boy,’ Alfred says, putting a hand on Superboy’s shoulder. ‘Master Tim, he. He also didn’t take well to your not being here with him.’

The kid stays with them overnight - with his powers flaring up and sizzling out, he can’t be trusted to fly all the way back to Kansas. 

As they put him to bed, Dick lingers at the doorway.

‘What,’ Jason asks flatly, elbowing Dick in the ribs.

Dick seemingly doesn’t notice the jab and keeps staring creepily into the room with a sleeping Superboy. There’s something very raw in his gaze, and his eyebrows are furrowed in a very thoughtful way that looks like he’s on a brink of some monumental realization. 

‘Tim, he… Nevermind.’

Dick doesn’t continue and Jason doesn’t press.

As the second anniversary of Tim’s death approaches, another thing adds up to the list of the crazy ones - one day, Booster Gold brings Batman back. Batman’s heavily injured and malnourished, but all of the tests the JLA can throw at him only confirm that he is indeed their Bruce. Booster Gold tells a story about magic and time travel, but Jason doesn’t really listen. He’s already thinking of a way to retreat, how to tell Roy he has to cancel the dinner Alfred planned for Wednesday and what he’s gonna have to tell Damian about their weekly Cheese Viking marathons about to be canceled forever because Jason needs to flee the state, or, better, the country. He’s sure Bruce would hate him, would reprimand the others for working with him and for letting him into the house. 

Instead, as they make their way to the Batplane that Dick brought to take them home, Bruce leans on Jason heavily and doesn’t let go even when they’re seated in the plane.

When they arrive at the manor, Jason stays, because Bruce continues using him as his personal crutch. There’s group hugs with Jason being forced to get stuck in the middle, there’s tears on Alfred’s cheeks that’s terrifying in it’s own way, there’s warmth and smiles. Bruce doesn't say anything when everyone treats Jason like he belongs here. He doesn’t ask Jason to leave even after he finds out that Jason wore the Batman suit for a month, covering the patrols for Dick when he broke his ribs. 

In the month that follows as Bruce recovers, he stays pensive and even more silent than usual. Jason tells Dick he knows that something’s brewing up, another storm that’s about to shake the whole family, another scandal and a shouting match that will shatter the pretense of calm that Bruce’s chosen to implore for the time being. Dick tells him he's paranoid, but what can the golden child of the family know? 

Jason starts avoiding the house and Bruce,up until the moment Bruce breaks into his safehouse. The man has the gull to sit in the dark on Jason's couch and wait, and when Jason turns on the lights he nearly jumps out of his skin. What follows is even more frightening, because Bruce, apparently, has found him to say that the journey through time had made him reevaluate a lot of things, that he was wrong to force his beliefs on Jason and that he’s still proud of him. Jason believes that it’s the weirdest thing and that nothing will ever top it. 

Until one morning comes, when Roy calls him and informs him that he’s found Tim. 

No, not really found  _ him _ \- but a photo of Tim in a newspaper, because Roy's a weirdo who likes to read printed papers. Jason says it's impossible, that there's no way it's Tim, but Roy is adamant that he's right. 

'Babe. Sugar, honey, love bun, darling _, love of my life_. Can you remind me, please, what's standing on the dresser right in front of our bed?'

'Um. Picture frames?' 

'Picture frames with the  _ photos of your family _ . Do you realize that I wake up every day to be greeted by the face of your dead brother?  _ Presumably  _ dead brother, sorry, because I am sure that it's  _ him  _ in the paper!' 

Jason doesn’t have anything to say to that, and he promises Roy to take a look at the photos as soon as he gets back to their shared apartment. He’s sure that Roy’s tired, that he’s just seeing things. But then Jason returns home and thinks that he may be losing his mind, too - because the article Roy shows him is about a harvest festival in some godforsaken place in Arizona, and the young man that Roy points out does look like Tim.

Jason looks at the pictures, at the figure in the background, the one that’s barely seen in one picture and is better visible in the other. The boy is not really a boy anymore. He’s more of a young man now, all grown up. He’s wearing flannel, which is one of the most not-bat things ever, and his hair is longer than Alfred would’ve ever allowed. What is more surprising is this - he’s holding a baby in his arms.

‘That’s not a baby, Jay,’ Roy laughs at him. ‘That’s a toddler at the very least. Lian was that tall when she was four, but she’s always been small for her age.’

Jason blinks at the photo, at the young man that looks so much like Tim, at the baby in his arms - the kid’s hair is dark, just like Tim’s.

‘I am going to bed,’ Jason declares.

He leaves the paper on the kitchen table, and hopes the pictures will make more sense in the morning, or that the likeness the young man in the photo has to Tim will disappear. But, under the morning light the figure in the photos looks even more like Tim. 

Jason paces through their tiny apartment, trying to make sense of what he’s seeing. He feels like his head may explode.

‘Jay, love, we’ve had so many miracles lately,’ Roy says softly, a calming presence, the anchor in Jason’s life. ‘Why can’t we have one more, just this once?’

Jason waits up until midday to contact Oracle - he knows she doesn’t wake up earlier than that and is too afraid to invoke her wrath.

‘Jason, have you been watching documentaries about Princess Anastasia surviving again?’ Oracle sighs, when Jason explains about the photos and Tim’s mysterious survival.

‘No! Babs, I swear, this is legit! And besides, I’m not the one who found the photos - Roy did!’

‘That somehow does not reassure me,’ Barbara mutters. Then, louder, she adds, ‘I know you feel very guilty, Jay. But we must accept that Tim’s-’

‘Babs. Please. Just, run the face recognition software. Check it and, if I’m wrong, I’ll never speak of it again.’

She agrees, promising that she will do as he asks, but only when she has time. Jason sends her a copy of the article and spends the whole day stress-baking. Roy keeps him company, tries to help him take his mind off things, but their conversations keep rerouting and going back to the article and how Babs probably won’t have time for it today. They’re watching the second season of ‘The Great British Bake Off’ when Jason’s phone pings. It’s the sound assigned to text messages and notifications, and Jason almost wants to miss it, to keep laying on the sofa, his legs thrown over Roy’s, his head pleasantly empty of any worries about life and fully into what he’s watching.

‘Babe,’ Roy says, and the caution in his voice makes Jason turn immediately, ‘it’s your bat-phone.’

That’s the name Roy’s given the device used only for inter-family communication, and usually Roy makes fun of him for even agreeing to carry it, but this time his voice is serious. Almost too tight, like he’s trying to hold himself together for Jason’s sake, like when he knows that Jason’s at the breaking point and Roy is the one who’s going to hold him together. 

Jason takes the phone and makes a point to school his face into a neutral expression. He’s not sure what he was preparing himself for, but it wasn’t the short message from Oracle that told him to be in the Cave in 20 minutes. Jason shoots off the sofa and gets dressed in record time, grabbing the keys from his bike and a quick kiss from Roy as he runs to the door. 

He breaks quite a few laws on his way and arrives at the Cave at the record time of 18 minutes. There’s others in the Cave, too, - Dick with Damian, Bruce with Cassandra and Duke, Alfred checking up on Stephanie’s sprained wrist, probably just to keep himself busy. There’s a nervous atmosphere in the room, like the air before the storm.

‘Jason,’ Oracle’s voice booms from the speakers and the computer lights up with the green of her logo. ‘Thank you for coming on such a short notice.’

The green light flowing from the screen is too disconcerting, too much like the gleam of the Lazarus waters, and Jason averts his eyes.

‘If this is a no-codenames meeting, Barbie,’ he says in defiance, ‘Then why all of the secrecy with your camera off?’

There is a sigh, a soft click, and the green that used to illuminate the room disappears. Jason looks up to see Barbara’s tired face on the screen.

‘I have called all of you here today’, she says solemnly, ‘because of a.  _ Discovery _ , that Jason has made.’

She pauses after that, and Jason realizes with mounting horror that she doesn’t know how to continue. Their eyes meet for a brief second and Jason knows Roy must've been right.

‘Babs, why you gotta be so gloomy?’ Stephanie laughs, light and easy, not realizing yet what’s waiting for her. ‘Can you cut to the chase,  _ por favor _ \- me and Cassie here have an  _ amazing _ Spanish movie to go back to!’

Stephanie nudges Cassandra with her elbow, but gains no reaction - Cass is watching Barbara on the screen and doesn’t take her eyes off her.

‘This is about Tim,’ Barbara finally says.

A tense, suffocating silence falls over the room. Stephanie jumps to her feet.

‘No,’ she says, angry tears at the corners of her eyes.  _ ‘Stop _ . Just, please, stop. Let the dead stay dead. No matter what shit you’ve unearthed about him, I’m not listening to it.’

Just as she’s about to leave, Cassandra’s hand shoots out to catch Stephanie’s and pulls her back.

‘Please,’ Cass says. ‘Stay. You need to listen.’

There's another hesitant pause from Barbara. She adjusts her glasses and sighs. 

'I don't know how to tell you this,' she finally says with an air of uncertainty that feels so wrong for her. 'It'll be easier if I just showed you.'

Without warning, the images Jason's sent her before flood the screen. There's full versions on the background and the cropped ones upfront. 

Jason can hear some gasps around him, there's a chair that clatters to the ground as someone shoots up, but he doesn't turn to see who that is - he can't keep his eyes off the images on the screen.

All his mind does is go  _ oh _ and then it gets stuck. 

Because, the resemblance is so much more visible like this. 

'That's  _ Tim _ ,' Dick says what's on everyone’s minds.

'Barbara?' Bruce says in a hoarse voice that's neither Batman nor Bruce Wayne.

A voice that's almost  _ broken _ .

'Yes, Bruce,' she answers without the question being asked. 'I've confirmed it with face recognition software and projections of how Tim would've looked if he was older. It all checks out - this boy is either a complete clone of his, or he is really Tim.'

Chatter picks up around the room. Jason turns to see Duke holding Steph up, and Cassandra holding Batman’s hand and signing to him frantically. Jason’s probably seeing things, but it seems like Alfred’s eyes are watery, and Jason turns away immediately as he sees that, a feeling of dread because of the discomposed state of the old butler taking over him. 

‘Do you think that’s really him?’ Dick asks, somewhere to his right.

Jason has to tense all of his muscles up to make sure he doesn’t jump at Dick’s silent approach.

‘Babs’ software says that the face is his,’ Jason answers carefully.

Dick’s face is something Jason can’t look at too, because seeing his older brother so open and vulnerable and  _ hurt  _ makes Jason uncomfortable.

‘We still have to confirm everything to actually be sure,’ Oracle’s voice chimes in. ‘But the face is a definite match.’

‘Wait. Ain’t we missing the most important part?’ Duke, the sanest person in the family says. ‘Is that  _ a baby  _ in his arms?!’

‘That’s a toddler,’ Jason corrects automatically.

All of the eyes in the room turn to him.

‘What? Roy said it is. Roy knows these things.’

There’s a very heavy sigh from Bruce’s side, and everyone goes back to talking to each other. There’s hope and anger and grief in equal measure, and some theories about why and how Tim might’ve appeared at a county fair in Arizona. Jason gets tired of listening to them make up wild theories and flops down on a bench near the medbay.

‘So, I have this theory,’ Jason says loudly, when he gets bored enough to try and draw their attention to himself. ‘Tim’s got amnesia. Then, he got a girl knocked up, and now he’s living a happily married life in Arizona.’

There’s a long pause before Bruce snaps an irritated 'Jason' at him and Barbara sighs, while everyone else is trying to talk over each other to get their point across, about how wrong he is. 

'He's not even wearing a wedding band!' Duke points out, almost hysterically. 

That's true - the hand that's supposed to be the one with the ring is clearly visible in one of the photos, cradling through the child's black, curly hair.

'Okay,' Jason concedes, 'so, he got amnesia  _ and then _ got adopted by a family of 10, and that’s his newest younger brother.'

There's a few more angry snaps towards him, and the family goes back to their conversations, Jason not included into any of them. He lasts about ten minutes before drawing everyone's attention back to himself once more. 

'Okay, so, another idea, totally serious this time,' he promises, standing up, 'he has amnesia and-'

Dick jumps to his feet, trying and failing to even out their height. 

'Jay, will you fucking stop with the amnesia?!'

Jason looks at his older brother and even the fact that he has to look down doesn't help lift his spirits. 

'If there's no amnesia,' he says, suddenly serious, 'why else would he stay away from us?' 

The silence that follows is thunderous. 

Looking at the others' faces, Jason's about to regret what he's just said. But he doesn't really have time for that, because the next moment a childish voice full of disbelief rings in the silence. 

'Is that Drake?' Damian gasps from the Cave's entrance.

'Oh, shoot,' Dick swears under his breath, and Jason wonders if his brother realizes that he's turned on the kiddie-friendly swears almost automatically.

Jason watches as Bruce starts to get up slowly, but Dick gets to Damian first, and starts explaining in a hushed, soft voice.

‘No!’ Damian cries out suddenly, stomping his feet.

It’s late, Jason understands, and Damian is just 13. He’s no doubt had a long day at school and had the whole evening set aside for homework, and the emotional strain, no matter how much the boy insists on pretending to be unemotional, is too much for him.

‘I hate him!’ Damian screams, shaking Dick’s hands off, ‘I hate him, I hate him, I hate him!!!!’

‘Dami,  _ please _ .’

‘Doesn't he know how you  _ all  _ mourned him?! How you've cried for him?! How could he do this to you?!’

Jason notices the deliberate exclusion of Damian out of the ‘mourning’ crowd. He shouldn’t be surprised, really - Damian and Tim didn’t really know each other, they’ve only met twice, and their two encounters had been filled with murder attempts and resentment from Damian’s side.

Dick hushes Damian and lifts him in his arms - a boy that’s grown since he was 10, that doesn’t fit so well in Dick’s embrace anymore, but also still does, in some other way. Dick’s carrying Damian out when Jason notices tears on the kid’s cheeks. 

‘Well, that was one hell of a spectacle,’ he sighs, when the doors to the Cave elevator shut after Dick and Damian. 

‘What do we do now?’ Duke asks.

‘We’ll need to search for this boy, of course,’ Alfred says as a matter of fact. 

‘Even if it turns out to be a ruse,’ Bruce adds grimly.

‘I’m already setting up the search to see if anything else turns up, and also I’m combing the area for the potential leads,’ Babs chimes in, and her faceless voice from the screen startles Jason.

‘Wait, an idea!’ Jason gasps.

Bruce turns to him, a silent plea in his eyes to  _ stop _ , but Jason’s feeling unstoppable right now.

‘Before you  _ came back _ , we had to redecorate a sunroom,’ Jason says, pointedly not looking at Bruce, ‘And didn’t Superboy mention that he can recognize Tim’s heartbeat?’

***

When Dick puts Damian to bed, the kid is already fast asleep. He’s been embarrassed and therefore angry with Dick, even though anger is more or less the default emotion Damian chooses every time he’s confronted with anything that makes him feel things. Dick thinks that Damian may not understand himself why Tim’s sudden and possible appearance upset him so much. But, Dick knows that it’s because Damian is a deeply empathetic child, that he’s learnt to care for people over the three years he’s spent with them. What Damian has also learnt was shame, and Dick suspects that might be one of the reasons why the reminder about Tim has set him off into a violent tantrum.

He looks at Damian’s sleeping form, at the child under the star-patterned blanket, and wonders how he could’ve thought Dick himself was a big and serious crime-fighter at 13. 

What bullshit.

Dick softly closes the door behind him and wonders down the corridor, falling heavily onto a bench in the hall. He’s not sure how long he sits there, contemplating what ifs, until Jason finds him. Jay puts an unsteady hand onto Dick’s shoulder, unsure and awkward, as he usually is about personal things and human contact.

And that’s _ his brother _ . One of his younger brothers that he thought was lost forever, but the one he was fortunate to get back. He can’t believe his own luck. He’s forever grateful for whatever possessed Jason to re-connect.

‘We’re assembling a search party,’ Jason informs him, settling down on the bench beside him. ‘And we’re going to invite Superboy to join us.’

‘Oh,’ Dick sighs. ‘He said he could hear Tim’s heartbeat, right?’

‘Yeah, he. He did.’

Jason sighs and turns away, as he always does when he’s about to share something troubling him.

‘Do you think Tim reads the papers there?’

‘Papers? Jay, what are you-’

‘Red Hood working with the bats was in the papers.’

It takes time for Dick’s brain to catch up with what Jason’s implying.

‘You don’t mean that,’ he says strictly.

Jason finally turns to face him, determination in his eyes. 

'Except that I do. What if he's not coming back because _ I'm _ here?'

'Tim wouldn't do that!' 

'I did try to kill him, Dick!' Jason screams and hides his face in his hands. 

Oh, yes. That. With how the last year passed, with seeing Jason be an affectionate and sometimes annoying older brother to Damian, Dick's almost forgotten. 

'Tim is a good kid who knows how to forgive,' Dick says with conviction. 'I'm sure he'll forgive you, if he hadn't already. So you'll have to get over yourself, Jase. If there's a reason Tim's been keeping away from us, it's something serious.' 

Jason takes his hands off his face. 

'Oh, so I'm not serious enough of a reason?' he says, with an upturned corner of his mouth.

Dick elbows him in the ribs. 

'Oh, shut up, you big baby, you'll live. Not everything should be about you!'

Dick watches as his brother's shoulders relax a slightest bit. He's noticed how Jay keeps looking at Bruce as if expecting to be chased away, how he avoids being in the middle of family gatherings and keeps his distance, keeps closer to the doors as if readying for an escape. Dick only hopes that having Tim back - and he is  _ certain _ that it's Tim in the photos, his heart tells him so - will only serve to bring Jason closer to them.

He sits back, slumping on the bench and looking at the paintings covering the wall across from them. Jason mirrors his position, relaxing. 

'You're gonna be a marvelous brother to him,' Dick says, maybe a bit wistfully. 

Jason doesn't reply. 

***

Kon isn't sure if he believes what the bats tell him. He's almost gotten used to Tim being gone. 

No, he hasn't. 

But.

He ventures a guess that Tim might not remember them, and Red Hood starts laughing, clapping him on the shoulder. The others give them very tired looks, but won’t explain to Kon  _ why _ .

Right now, they’re going to Arizona. Going by plane, because Batman says that Tim might be held hostage and that the area may be under surveillance. They’re going incognito, not as superheroes but also not as the Waynes, and the jarring plainness of Bruce wearing a simple black turtleneck and a pair of black jeans really throws Conner off.

It’s probably not right that Kon keeps calling him Batman. The man hasn’t worn the cowl yet, not since he’s been returned from a different time. Seeing him up close for the first time in months, Kon understands why - he’s obviously lost weight, and his movements are stiff from the injuries he’s still recovering from. Others have taken the responsibility that comes with the cowl, and the man before Kon just looks tired, weighted down by grief.

There seems to be a hopeful glint in his eyes though, as they move on with their investigation and discuss their plans. The area around the harvest festival has three more tiny towns that they’re planning to cover, going there in no more than groups of two, not to draw too much attention to themselves. Their mission objective is recon, and they’re to pretend to be tourists looking for a retreat from the big city life. Kon gets to be the lucky one to get Duke assigned to go with him, which is also a way for the bats to get someone to look after Kon, as if he’s an amateur and not a trusted ally who’s proved himself countless times. (yeah, except that time he’s let Superboy Prime kill him. And then he wasn’t here when Tim. When Tim.  _ Tim _ . He needs to focus on Tim)

Kon does that as soon as they arrive at a small town called Pleasant Wells. Him and Duke go to a local diner first, where Conner kicks off his research by chatting with one of the waitresses. He tells her that he’s originally from a small town, too, even though now he lives in a city, and she eagerly joins him in comparing city life to the local one - of course, not in the favor of the cities. Soon enough, Kon steers the conversation towards there being not that many people his age, only five or so in his class, and asks the woman if it’s the same here.

‘Oh, it’s even worse, darling,’ the waitress exclaims. ‘We’ve only got one baby in the whole town - he’s three and such a sweetheart! And his daddy is one of the two people under thirty who live here. Absolutely everybody else is at least fifty!’

The woman then proceeds to tell him about the child named Jackie, who’s smart and cute and all of the other words of praise that the woman gives him, and seems to be the town’s darling.

‘But Timmy doesn’t bring him here that often, because he says that sugar is bad for him, and that everyone keeps giving him those candies that-’

‘Um, sorry,’ Kon interrupts, his mouth suddenly dry, ‘Didn’t you say the child’s name was Jackie?’

‘Oh, Timmy’s his father,’ the waitress laughs. ‘But I guess I can’t call him Tim or, God forbid, Timothy, because he’s that young!’

Duke drops his mug of coffee and it shutters on the floor. Kon finds it very impressive, because Duke’s a meta who can predict the near future, and him not being able to catch the mug shows just how shaken he is.

‘Oh, you know how those teenage daddies are,’ the waitress says with a wink. ‘We’re betting there’s a very tragic story behind it. Just you think - a young man having been left with a kid, all on his own.’

Another waitress has come to help Duke clean up, and she looks up at them.

‘His grandfather called him Timothy,’ she adds. ‘The one with the sideburns, he was here a couple of hours ago, remember?’

‘A  _ grandfather _ ?’ Duke asks, suddenly sounding very concerned.

‘Oh, yes! Just today, a man appeared in the town, and he was such a gentleman! Told us Timmy’s been estranged from his family, something to do with a fight about him becoming a father at such a young age. But the grandfather is trying to reconnect now, so he’s headed to the farm! I’m sure it will be a splendid reunion and that we will have so many stories to discuss.’

‘We need to go,’ Duke says suddenly, urgently. When he smiles at the waitresses, his smile is taut. ‘We’ll be sure to come back later, thank you so much for the food!’

He pushes a hundred into the women’s hands and that shocks them enough to stop them in their tracks and let Kon and Duke leave uninterrupted. Duke grabs Kon’s arm and drags him out of the diner. Kon falls into step with him, trying to keep up.

‘Why are you freaking out?’ he asks. ‘Should  _ I _ be freaking out?’

‘An old man with sideburns,’ Duke says, while typing furiously on his phone. ‘Calling Tim  _ Timothy _ . I’ve read his files - I guess, it was after you died, but there was a moment when Ra’s Al Ghul tried to recruit Tim, and, after the promises of power and riches failed, tried to rope him into being his right hand at the League of Assassins by offering to resurrect his dead loved ones.’

‘He what?!’

Kon had truly missed a lot - he wants to ask about the files, about what else happened to Tim when Kon wasn’t there to stop it, but Duke doesn’t even let him ask his questions. Instead, he slides into the driver’s seat and starts their car. While Kon takes his seat, Duke continuously looks back at his smartwatch, reading rapidly appearing texts from his family.

‘There’s only one farm still functioning around here, it’s just at the town limits. The others are driving to the town as we speak, but we’re to keep a low profile, especially if Ra’s and the League are involved.’

Kon doesn’t protest - he’s been grilled enough by Batman and doesn’t want to listen to another lecture about using his unsubtle powers during recon missions. He nods, looks out of the window and they spend all of five minutes in silence.

‘What do you think about that baby they mentioned?’ Duke asks, his fingers rapping nervously on the steering wheel. ‘Is that the one from the photos? Was there a girl Tim’s been with who could’ve gotten pregnant, and he didn’t tell anyone?’

Tim, who’s always scoffed at him flirting with hot girls, who’s given him lectures about needing to get more serious about his relationships, about being responsible and safe with casual sex, and he knew for a fact that him and Steph hadn’t gone past making out.

‘How dare you imply that Tim-’ he starts, but then cuts himself off.

Steph. If the kid is three years old, and then you add like nine months before that, it means that it was the time when Tim and Steph were still dating.

‘Oh my god, I think Tim cheated on Steph and she’s gonna murder him!’

That makes Duke look away from the road ahead of him, blink owlishly at Kon, and then start laughing almost manically.

They nearly run over a coyote and only Kon’s reflexes and him grabbing the wheel save the poor animal.

‘What the hell, man?!’ Kon yells at him, as Duke wipes the tears in the corners of his eyes.

‘You won’t understand,’ Duke says, his voice shaking. ‘You don’t know what it’s like to live in his shadow. He was practically  _ perfect _ ! Dick and Jason treat him like a deity, he’s this infallible Robin, the best one ever to be, and Bruce refuses to talk about him. Even Damian feels that way, I know he does. I’ve seen him near Tim’s portrait enough times. But now, it turns out that all this time he’s actually been human and not a perfect angel they all paint him to be? That he’s maybe made mistakes? That he’s been a horny teenager and that he has a kid now? That’s  _ liberating _ .’

Kon’s always known about the insane pressure Robins - or, well, any of the bat kids, really - feel, but he’s never heard it put so eloquently. More than that, he’s never expected someone to feel that way about Tim. Oh, he’s sure Tim’s gonna find it hilariously funny.

There is one thing tough, that doesn’t make sense to Kon.

‘Tim’s never really been into casual sex,' he tells Duke. 'He’s always been so serious about his relationships and I don’t think he would hide something like that from me. Him and Steph never even gotten to the third base, because Tim said that sex was a serious step and they weren’t ready. I cannot for the life of me imagine him getting a girl pregnant and shrugging it off like nothing happened. Something here doesn’t feel right.’ 

‘Maybe he didn’t know?’ Duke proposes.

Kon shrugs. His brain is more preoccupied with imagining Tim going down on some girl. The mental image is giving him a sick feeling he can’t really explain.

It’s good that they finally arrive at the farm and have to leave the car before entering the property, walking towards the house slowly and carefully. Kon can hear a lot of heartbeats from the farm, but not the one he can recognize. He tells Duke about that, and Signal replies that the farm is owned by a married couple, who have no children, and that nearly 10 heartbeats Kon can hear make no sense. Kon scans the house with his X-ray vision to see two women, tied and gagged, and a group of ninjas in black clothes standing around them. When he describes what he sees to Duke, he recognizes the League of Assassins.

‘Batman says not to engage,’ Duke informs him, after having sent the new info to the family. 

‘Are we really not gonna engage?’ Kon asks cautiously.

‘There are two elderly women in danger,’ Duke tells him with a feeling. ‘Of course we’re gonna engage. We’ll tell Bruce we had no choice.’

Kon nods. He likes Duke.

Signal pulls on a mask, but Kon doesn’t bother to. With their powers combined - Superboy and his superspeed, Signal hiding in the shadows created by his powers and predicting his opponent’s every more, the League’s ninjas are no match for them. Most of them end up unconscious, but Kon finds one assassin who’s still present, and drags him to the middle of the room.

‘Where’s Tim?’ he demands, dragging the black cloth off the man’s face, to see it better.

The ninja smiles smugly.

‘Poison!’ Signal yells, pointing at the man.

Kon realizes in an instance that the ninja’s gonna swallow a suicide pill and he grabs the man’s throat, opens his mouth with the other hand like he does sometimes with Krypto when he’s being naughty, and pulls out the pill.

‘Oh no, you don’t!’ Kon hisses, fuming with anger. ‘You don’t get to die so easily, when your stupid League is stalking my best friend! Where. Is. Tim?!’

Kon knows his eyes are blazing red and he doesn’t care. That works to his advantage when the ninja whimpers something about a red-eyed demon and tells him that the Demon Head had left to capture him and his heir, and that there is nothing to be done about that.

‘Tim’s taken John’s bike and gone South,’ one of the women says, as soon as Duke gets the ropes off the two of them. The woman’s hair is completely white and her scowl is quite threatening when she looks Kon in the eye and says, ‘you go and bring him back.’

Kon nods and, before Duke has a chance to say something, shoots out of the house and into the sky.

Drifting south among the clouds, Kon closes his eyes and listens. There are sounds down in the desert, of animals and small critters living their lives. There is a cry of a lonely dog. He expands his hearing further, listening for heartbeats. There are a lot of them somewhere to Kon’s right, some fast, some slow, and he realizes that must be the town. He starts listening in the opposite direction, knowing full well that Tim would’ve never risked bringing the League into a populated place. He’s looking for a sound that’s familiar, but almost forgotten now, because he worked so hard to persuade himself that he’s been hearing things and that Tim is dead. He knows it will take only a second, one beat to recognize it now.

And it does.

Kon hears a sound that’s like a forgotten memory, a thing of distant and happy past, and recognizes it instantly.

Tim’s heart is beating, fast and strong.

Kon speeds towards the sound.

He goes faster as he hears more heartbeats around Tim, and a sound of a fight stopping abruptly. He arrives just as a helicopter starts to lift itself off the ground.

Ra’s is there, as well as a whole platoon of ninjas, and a lot of them are limping or holding their arms close to their chests. Just behind them, visible through the helicopter’s doors which are left wide open, is a man with dark hair and blue eyes.

Kon knows that face, even though it has changed over the last few years, matured into an adult instead of a soft-cheeked teenager Kon remembers.

‘Tim!’ Superboy calls.

Their eyes meet and Kon smiles so hard his face hurts.

‘Kon?’ Tim’s voice is deeper than Kon remembers, and right now it’s lined with worry. ‘Kon, no, get away from here!’

Kon wants to ask what’s wrong, but that’s when he barely evades a shuriken thrown at him - and the weapon gleams with the green of kryptonite. Kon finally notices that Ra’s has armed his assassins with kryptonite knives and there is a cage behind them, the bars made completely of the green stone gleaming in it’s evil glory. The sheer amount of kryptonite in the vicinity makes Kon’s knees buckle, sending him to the ground.

He can faintly hear Tim’s screams and Ra’s telling him something vaguely threatening, and the chopper moving away. That also takes the kryptonite further away from him, and Superboy can finally lift his head, trying to stand on shaking legs.

He looks up to see Tim at the edge of the helicopter’s doors, being held back by two ninjas.

Their eyes meet again, and Kon knows Tim has a plan - he catches Superboy’s eyes in the soundless command to follow his lead, and there isn’t a place in this world where Kon wouldn’t listen to his Robin.

Tim moves, elbowing one of the men guarding him and kicking the other, and, as they let go of him, Tim yells ‘ _ Conner, catch! _ ’ and throws a kid out of the flying helicopter.

Kon didn’t know he could go so fast with a kryptonite poisoning, but, apparently, he can - and he catches the screaming kid just as he’s about to hit the ground. The kid thrashes in his hold, and wow, can he  _ scream  _ \- the high-pitched sound he's making nearly takes Kon's ears off.

Kon looks up at the chopper that's getting away - he can't see Tim, but his heartbeat is still there, even though it's slowing down, as if Tim's losing consciousness.

'Daddy!' the boy in Kon's arms wails desperately, tears and snot covering his face. 'Daddy! Let go!' 

The last one is obviously directed at Kon, and he strengthens his hold automatically, holding the tiny body close to his chest. The kid screams, kicking him and wriggling in his arms like  _ an eel _ , and then something that Kon can't really explain happens - the tiny fingers grab his and pull at his fingers, nearly succeeding in getting Kon's hands unclenched.

That's not a thing humans can do. Especially, not a thing _a_ _toddler_ should be able to do. Kon wonders if the kryptonite poisoning is worse than he thought.

A car's tires screech as it turns and stops, sending sand flying everywhere. Assorted members of the bat family spill out of it, their weapons at the ready.

Kon turns to them, the toddler in his arms still crying, but no longer struggling. 

'They've got Tim,' Superboy says, just to say something. 'They had kryptonite, I couldn't stop them, I'm so sorry!' 

Batman glances at Kon and then lowers his eyes toward the toddler in his arms. The boy has calmed down a bit, which only means he's no longer thrashing and kicking, but is just crying miserably into Kon's t-shirt. 

‘Hey,’ Bruce says softly, leaning down to be on the eye-level with the kid. ‘My name is Bruce. And your name is Jack, right?’

The boy doesn’t react - he just watches Bruce’s movements silently, shaking and hiccuping.

‘We’ve met Margaret and Isabella today. They are very scared because of those men who came after you and your dad. Do you think you could come back to the farm with us, to help them feel less scared?’

It takes the boy some time to decide, but he finally nods. 

‘Would you like someone else to carry you, or are you okay where you are?’ Batman continues, seemingly not bothered by the lack of response.

The boy turns to look at Kon and. And his eyes are  _ so blue _ , and he looks so much like Tim with that pensive, analytical look on his face. 

Kon’s never been around children that young, only those he saved from the natural disaster sites during missions, but never like this, and he can't treat this kid like a nameless disaster survivor because this kid is  _ Tim's _ kid, Tim's  _ son _ . Tim's had a kid with someone, and Kon thinks darkly -  _ who is she _ ?! Why did she leave Tim to take care of the kid all on his own?! 

‘Okay,’ Jack says, effectively distracting Kon from his thoughts.

Is Kon seeing things, or does Batman look disappointed?

Well, even if he does, the man masks it well, and the kid stays in Kon’s arms even when they take their seats in the car. It doesn’t take even five minutes of driving before Jack falls asleep, clutching at Kon’s shirt.

Kon’s taken the passenger seat, while the others piled up into the backseat - the huge car they borrowed is still not enough to make their trip comfortable, with Jason’s bulky stature taking up half the space and Duke, Dick, Cassandra and Steph having to squeeze into the space that’s left. Which, of course, starts a squabble between them, hisses and jabs are being exchanged, and Kon watches as Bruce holds on to the steering wheel too tightly, closes his eyes for a moment and sighs. 

Is this what parenthood is like? Is this what, to some degree, Tim has to go through? Kon’s so glad he will only have to be the Fun Uncle and not deal with all of this.

‘Will you move your fucking ass,’ Dick angry-whispers at Jason.

‘Will you shut your fucking mouth, there’s a baby sleeping,’ Jason replies.

There’s some sounds of muffled fighting and Bruce finally snaps.

‘Boys!’ he calls, a bit too loud.

Dick sticks his head in the space between the driver’s and passenger’s seat, and stage-whispers, ‘Bruce, don’t you know there’s a kid sleeping, why are you yelling?’ 

‘Yeah, old man,’ Jason joins in, trying to fit into the limited space together with Dick, ‘There’s a kid in this car, keep your voice down.’

Batman rolls his eyes, but does not reply. His two sons do not rush to leave the space they squeezed themselves into - instead, they both toss and turn, pushing each other, trying to get a glimpse at the kid in Kon’s arms.

‘He looks _ so much _ like Tim, like oh. My. Gosh!’ Dick whispers, sounding touched.

‘Really?’ Duke asks from somewhere behind them, obviously not being able to see.

‘Yes,’ Cassandra’s voice sounds from Conner’s right and he almost jumps.

He turns to see her head over his right shoulder. She smiles weakly at him, but then her face becomes serious again. Kon notices how she cautiously looks back. He realizes that Stephanie is the only person who’s not trying to scale his seat’s back to try and look at the kid. He wonders if it’s because she’s done the math and realized that Jack must be a result of Tim cheating on her. Oh, her and Tim's first meeting is gonna be  _ so _ awkward.

Whenever that's gonna be. Because Kon was an idiot and let the League take him.

'I'm so sorry,' he says suddenly, to everyone in the car. 'I let them take Tim.' 

There's a bit of silence before Batman speaks up. 

'Your choice to run headfirst into danger, without backup, was not something I would have approved of,' he starts.

Kon hangs his head, ready to take the blame for everything, but that’s not what happens.

‘But,’ Batman continues, ‘If you hadn’t done that, Jack would still be on that plane. Besides, you didn’t really  _ let  _ them take Tim, I’m sure he had a plan to attract the League’s attention to himself and to get the child out.’

‘How did he do it, by the way?’ Red Hood asks absentmindedly. ‘Get him out?’

‘He, uh, he threw him out of the plane?’ Kon mumbles, not even sure why it sounds like a question.

‘He threw a child out of a plane?!’ Jason screeches.

Jack shoots up, woken up by the scream. He looks around groggily, one hand holding tightly to Kon’s t-shirt.

‘Daddy?’ Jack calls, looking around for a familiar face that’s not there.

As soon as the boy realizes that Tim’s not with them and, maybe, remembers about what happened, he starts inhaling sharply, his breaths becoming more frequent with each new one. Soon, he starts sniffling and there are tears in the corners of his eyes.

The atmosphere of utter dread takes over the car - the adults here are completely terrified of a crying child, because most of them have no idea what to do. It’s lucky for them that the car finally stops at the farm, maybe even too close to the door - but, at least, closer to the owners of the farm, the two people Jack knows and will feel comfortable around. Parking so close to the door must've been Batman's plan, because, as soon as the car stops, the women come out of the house to meet them. When Jack sees them through the window, he rattles the car door frantically. Kon unlocks the door for him, and the boy shoots out of the car and into the women's arms.

Kon can’t help but eavesdrop, and he hears Jack say something in Spanish to one of the women and promptly start crying. The woman, the shorter one of the two, murmurs to him in the same language and starts rocking the boy in her arms.

‘Jackie, honey, come to Nana,’ the other woman says, carefully prying the boy out of the shorter woman’s grasp, ‘you know your Abuela’s back can’t hold you for long anymore.’

Jack cries something about ‘Nana’ and ‘Daddy’ while being transferred from one pair of arms to the other, and the woman nods sympathetically. She carries the boy inside. 

'You have  _ promised _ to bring him back,' the shorter woman walks up to the Batman himself, who is almost twice as tall as her. Her face, though, looks as menacing as his, when he needs to scare criminals. 'You told me you would, and here I hear Jackie tell me his daddy has been taken!' 

'I know,' is all that Bruce replies. 

There is an edge to his voice that Kon's never heard before, so novel and unusual that Kon's having trouble identifying the emotion in it. Bruce standing with his back to him doesn't help, but this way Conner can see the elderly woman's face, which changes to something akin to sympathy. 

'Come inside,' she finally says, opening the door. 

The others pile in, but Conner lingers at the door a moment longer, looking around. He sees the tractor and the barn, and his x-ray vision reveals animals in it - chickens and a few cows. It's hard to believe that Tim has lived here for the past few years, and it's even harder to imagine him raising a kid here.

Tim has a kid. Kon's best friend is a  _ dad _ now. Oh wow.

'Why are you still here?' oh, the woman is waiting at the door. She holds it open for him, and Kon follows her inside, feeling just about the same way he does when Ma scolds him. The others are already in the living room, standing there awkwardly. Jack has been given back to the shorter woman, and she’s sitting in one of the armchairs, the boy passed out on her lap.

'Sorry,' Kon tries to explain himself. 'It's only now starting to sink in, that my best friend has a kid. At  _ nineteen _ !' 

A lot of the others nod, agreeing with Conner’s uneasiness. 

‘What nineteen?’ the woman who’s currently holding Jack huffs, ‘Tim’s twenty three!’

There is a very awkward pause and a lot of looks being exchanged.

‘Tim is nineteen,’ Dick says carefully and slowly, almost like he’s not sure if the women have heard what Kon’s said correctly.

‘He is most certainly not, I’ve seen his papers!’ the other woman interjects.

Kon thinks it’s about time he learned their names, and the chaos that follows the disagreement about Tim’s age gives him the perfect opportunity to go to Duke and ask for the women’s names. He learns that the shorter one is called Isabella, and the taller one - Margaret. They have been the ones who gave Tim a place to stay, and helped him raise Jack all these years. The women had a conversation with Bruce and know that they are Tim’s family, but they don’t know anything about the caped part of their life, nor do they have any idea about why Ra’s was hunting Tim. During the two years Tim’s spent here, he’s never explained where he was from or who’s the kid’s mother, never tried to contact anyone and didn’t even own a phone.

When Kon tunes back into the general chaos of the room, it turns out that, when he was grilling Duke for information, the others had started a fight over who Jack is going to stay with. Thankfully, the kid is asleep on Isabella's lap through all of that. 

'My name is Bruce Wayne and I am Batman,' Batman says in a decisive voice, and the chatter in the room dies out. 'I have been Batman for years, and what I'm telling you right now is a deeply guarded secret, because it can endanger not only me, but all of my children. Tim is one of them, and even if I don't understand why he chose to keep away from us, I promise I only have his best interest at heart. His, and his son.'

'I wouldn't give a fuck even if you were some kind of god,' Margaret says, pointing an accusing finger at him. 'There must've been a reason why Tim didn't trust you to keep him and his kid safe. Suppose he's nineteen right now, that would've made him 16 when Jackie was born. And, a year later, he ended up alone with that baby in his arms,  _ here _ of all places. I don't know any kid who wouldn't run to their parents if something like that happened - unless those parents are total assholes towards them and can't be trusted.'

Conner expects Bruce to protest, but he doesn't. He doesn't make a noise at all. 

A mass of purple walks up towards the angry woman - Spoiler isn't subtle even in civilian clothes. 

'Um, hi, Steph here!' she says, raising her hand like if she were in class. 

Kon sympathizes - he personally wouldn't even go near Margaret, she seems like an old and scary teacher.

'I've known Tim since he was fourteen, we used to date. I also had a kid at fifteen,' Kon turns to her, shocked - he didn't know about that. He catches Jason and Duke doing the same thing, so it seems that he's not the only one. 'Um, no, that sounded wrong- The kid wasn't his, we didn't even. Uh, that's not what I wanted to say.' 

Steph heaves a heavy, frustrated sigh and cradles her fingers through her own hair.

'Tim is a very important person for me,' she starts again. 'He supported me throughout my pregnancy. He supported me in my decision to give up my baby girl. I. I knew I couldn't have taken care of her, so  _ I had to-' _

Steph hiccups, and brings a hand up to rub at her face. Margaret's face softens and she walks up to the young woman and puts a hand on her shoulder. 

'It's okay, honey,' she says. 'You don't owe anyone an explanation.' 

'Thanks,' Steph says, wiping at her eyes. 'I didn't say that to get your pity, though. I said that because I wanted you to know that Tim is important to me and a very close friend and I love him, and we used to share everything. And I've been wracking my brain for the reason why he would've  _ lied _ , why he didn't tell us- why he didn’t tell  _ me _ shit - and I keep coming up blank. I can't explain that, and I don't think anyone here knows how to do that, either. But what I do know is that these people are his family and they love him. Yeah, Bruce can be an asshole sometimes, but he cares. That’s why he’s been Batman for so long - because he cares and wants to help. And I promise you, he’s only asking you to let the boy stay with him at the Manor because there’s no way you will be able to protect him if the League of Assassins comes here to take him. They’re gonna want to use him as leverage to convince Tim to do whatever that is they want from him.’

‘They’ve wanted Jackie, by the way,’ Isabella interjects. She’s patting Jack’s hair in a slow, repeated motion, and that does not wake him up one bit. ‘That horrible man that came here and pretended to be Timmy’s grandfather, he sent his ninjas to get  _ Timothy and his heir _ . Is he in some kind of cult? Because that sounded like a kind of cult.’

Dick makes a face.

‘Yeah, you could say that,’ he confirms.

‘And to think that I offered him our best iced tea!’ Isabella exclaims.

Margaret scoots closer to her and lets Isabella press her face into her thigh. 

‘It’s okay, my love, you didn’t know,’ she says, running her fingers through Isabella’s hair.

And,  _ oh _ . They’re together! And Tim’s lived with them! Hopefully, this means that Tim’s gonna be okay when Kon tells him he’s bisexual. He doesn't mean to say that he’s expected Tim to be homophobic about it, but he also didn’t want Tim to find out through the grapevine of the gossip on how Kon’s had a few flings with some of the other younger heroes when Tim was gone.

‘I’m still not fully convinced,’ Margaret says, her arms still around Isabella. Margaret is looking right at Bruce and her gaze is defiant, her chin lifted arrogantly. ‘How do I know that all of this  _ Batman  _ talk is real?’

‘Here,’ Cass walks up to them silently and both women startle. ‘Tim’s piece of Robin’s cape, found it in his room here.’

Cassandra holds up a piece of yellow and black cape. It’s charred in a few places.

‘Oh, that’s the blanket he had Jackie in, the first day he came here,’ Isabella explains, touching the fabric lightly.

Margaret grabs the cape and looks at it thoroughly. She smooths her hands over it and tries to tear the fabric apart, not succeeding at it one bit.

‘This  _ blanket  _ is indeed strong,’ she admits.

‘It’s kevlar, I made it myself,’ Batman interjects.

Margaret gives him a look that promptly makes him shut up. Then, the woman turns to Cass, who takes the cape out of the elderly woman’s hands and hugs it close to her chest.

‘He’s my brother,’ Cass says, before Margaret has a chance to say something. ‘He’s my brother and I don’t understand. I-’

Cassandra’s body is wrecked by a whole-body shiver, and Kon’s seen her flip a man twice her size using just two fingers, but he’s never seen her  _ cry _ . Bruce pulls Cass into his arms and whispers something to her soothingly. She heaves two big, ugly sobs, and quiets.

The others step closer, to support Cass, some awkwardly, some - not so much. Kon respectfully stays where he is, not to get in the way of their family.

‘I’m surprised Jack hasn’t woken up yet,’ he says conversationally to the woman who’s holding the child.

‘Oh, he sleeps like a brick,’ Isabella chuckles fondly, ‘not at all like his father. Tim always wakes up from the slightest noise!’

‘Jack woke up in the car, but I think it’s because Jason was practically hollering into his ear.’

‘Or because of all that our poor cariño has been through today,’ Isabella muses and kisses the top of Jack’s head.

Kon makes a mistake of looking at Margaret and realizes that she is watching him intensely. 

‘You said you’re his best friend?’ she asks him. ‘I thought his best friend was dead.’

Conner feels his stomach drop. Tim talked about him?

‘I was. For some time. Superman brought me and our other friend back a year or so ago.’

Margaret gives him a very thorough look. The way she examines him makes him think of Cadmus and the scientists’ pensive stares.

When Margaret finally turns away, it’s to look at Batman.

‘Okay,’ she says. ‘You can take Jackie with you, but you will be keeping in touch and if you miss even  _ one  _ call, I swear to all that is holy that you will regret it, Batman or not!’

‘Actually, I was going to suggest installing a few security measurements, if you allow them. They can help you send a distress signal to us, in case the League of Shadows returns.’

Bruce and Margaret step aside to discuss it further, and Isabella gets up from her armchair, Jack in her arms.

‘Do you want to hold him, sweetie?’ she asks, nodding at Steph.

Steph recoils from her as if she has been burned.

‘No!’ she says, way too fast. ‘I’m sorry, I. I  _ can’t _ .’

There’s a mixture of lounging and pain on her face when she looks at Jack, and Kon feels like he’s walked onto something private, something not meant for his eyes.

Being stirred and moved around, Jack begins to wake up. Cassandra reaches out for him and Isabella wordlessly hands the boy to her.

‘Hello,’ Cass says to the kid who’s just woken up and looks quite disoriented. ‘Your daddy is my little brother, so I am your aunt. You can call me Aunt Cassie.’

Jack blinks at her, astonished, but does not say anything. Kon almost believed at one point that Jack doesn’t talk much yet, but then he’s seen how the boy blabbers around Margaret and Isabella. He wonders if it’s because Jack is shy around strangers.

‘Cariño, you are going on a very exciting trip,’ Isabella tells the boy. ‘You’re going to go spend some time with your daddy’s family, okay?’

‘You and Nana gonna go too?’ Jack asks sleepily, and that’s the longest sentence Kon’s heard from him so far.

‘No, mijo, we can’t - who’s gonna take care of your favorite Betsy if we do?’

‘Pero, Abuelita-’ Jack whimpers and starts sniffling.

‘None of those waterworks, young man,’ Margaret says strictly. ‘These people are your daddy’s family, and they will protect you. But I need to stay here, to protect my kids at the Center, because there’s nobody else who can do that. Do you understand?’

‘But Nana!’

‘Sweetie, I love you very much,’ the woman takes Jack’s face into her palms and wipes his tears, ‘But if those men come back, I don't know how to fight them. And I can’t let anything bad happen to you.’

‘Is something bad gonna happen to Daddy?’ Jack asks, his lower lip trembling.

‘Not if I can help it,’ Batman says decisively, approaching Cass. It seems that him and Margaret have found common ground, because she doesn’t scoff at him this time. ‘We’re going to find him and bring him back to you.’

‘I’m,’ Batman says, but pauses, and Dick has to push him to continue. ‘I’m your dad’s father.’

‘No you’re not! I’m named after my daddy’s father, and I can’t meet him because he’s died.’

Oh wow. That is a really emotionally constipated look on Bruce’s face. Ain’t Kon glad that he’s not the one talking to Jack right now.

‘I’m his adoptive father,’ Bruce adds, sounding a bit lost.

‘Oh,’ Jack says, like it explains it. ‘Then okay.’

Duke and Jason are snickering in the background and Bruce gives him a dismayed look.

‘We need to go, boys,’ he says pointedly and moves to the door.

Margaret and Isabella walk them to the bat-plane that’s parked a field or so away from the farm. It’s parked rather carelessly, obviously in a hurry. As they walk, Isabella hands Batman a bag with Jack’s things and Margaret answers his questions about the boy’s dietary restrictions. There are none, Kon remembers for the future reference, - Tim’s kid would eat anything, and as much of it as is given to him.

In the plane, Kon stays close to Batman, because Bruce asks him to listen for Tim’s heartbeat and to give him all of the details of his brief encounter with Ra’s and his men. The worst thing is that Conner can’t hear anything - but Bruce tells him it’s because Ra’s came prepared and is certainly using a lead-lined room to keep them from finding Tim.  _ Tim is going to be okay _ , Bruce repeats a twice, with a feeling, and Conner’s not sure if it’s done for his own or Kon’s benefit.

Meanwhile, Jack asks for his favorite plush toy, and a pink dinosaur is brought out of the bag. When Dick comments on Jack’s ‘dino’ being very cute, Jack gives him a dismayed look and corrects him by stressing that it’s a  _ stegosaurus _ . Duke and Jason make fun of Dick relentlessly after that, and Jack falls asleep. He stays like that until the end of the flight, and sleeps through everyone arguing over who is going to carry him inside. Kon though, is not sure why they think Cass will let them take the boy. He’s proven right when she evades the others and slips through the opening doors of the plane as soon as they land, while the others are still in the middle of their argument.

Conner is the last one to exit the plane - he’s feeling a bit uncomfortable, intruding on something that’s about their family like that. When he finally emerges, he sees Alfred talking to Jack, who’s still hoisted up in Cassie’s arms, and Dick leading Damian aside, explaining to him what everybody else neglected to do - all they found out about Tim and his kid. Duke and Steph are in a separate corner, too, and she looks upset, while Duke holds her hand.

Bruce is already at the computer, pulling up information on Tim and adjusting search parameters together with Oracle.

Somewhere in the middle of the chaos, Jack is put on the table, where he sits, dangling his legs, and Jason approaches him and asks if the boy knows anything about his mother.

Dick elbows him in the ribs almost like it’s an automatic reaction at this point. But Jack doesn’t seem bothered by the question.

‘I don’t have a mommy,’ he shrugs. ‘Some kids have freckles, and I don’t. Some kids have a mommy, and I don’t.’ 

‘That logic seems sound,’ Alfred agrees, appearing at the kid’s side with a glass of milk. ‘Drink up, Master Jack.’

Jack makes a face at him.

‘I’m Jackie!’ he corrects. ‘I’m only  _ Jack  _ when I’m in trouble.’

‘Master Jackie, that is,’ Alfred agrees, nodding solemnly.

Kon tries to remember not to call the kid his full name. He’s still weirded out by the choice - what he remembers of Jack Drake isn’t much, but Kon’s always thought that Tim’s bio-dad was a jerk who didn’t deserve Tim’s devotion. But, well, this is Tim’s kid, after all, Kon’s not gonna say anything.

‘Not  _ Master _ , just  _ Jackie _ !’ the kid presses on stubbornly.

‘It’s just Alfred’s way of referring to family,’ Dick explains, patting Jackie’s head. ‘And there’s no fighting him on it, so just let him have it.’

‘That is a wise decision, Master Dick,’ Alfred half-smiles, patting Dick on the shoulder.

‘Are you all my Daddy’s family?’ Jack asks, looking around the room.

‘Almost,’ Dick replies, ‘Except for Superboy who’s standing right there. Do you remember Conner?’

Kon waves awkwardly at the two of them. Jack scowls at him, and that look on his face is so recognizably Tim’s that Conner’s heart hurts.

‘I remember him,’ Jackie confirms, and hugs himself with both of his tiny, cutesy little arms. ‘Daddy knows him.’

‘Is it okay if I pick you up?’ Dick asks softly.

After a moment of hesitation, Jack nods, and soon enough Dick picks him up, to sit the boy in his lap. Dick proceeds telling Jackie about the other people in the room and how they’re all related to him, and Jack forgets that he was about to cry. Then, Dick takes the boy on a tour around the cave, which ends at the bat-computer.

There, Jackie freezes, watching the screen intently. 

‘That’s a nice photo of your daddy, isn’t it?’ Dick asks nicely, ruffling Jack’s hair.

‘No!’ Jack says, sudden and loud.

He also stomps his feet, and that brings him the attention of everybody in the room.

‘No!’ the boy repeats. ‘Why does it say  _ Tim Drake _ ? Daddy’s not  _ Drake _ , and I’m not  _ Drake _ !’

‘Holy sh- Shoot! You can read?!’ Jason gasps. ‘Of course Replacements’ kid would already know how to read at the age of three!’

‘Rep-la-cement?’ Jack repeats, sounding confused.

‘That's what Uncle Jason calls your daddy when he's jealous,’ Dick explains, grinning at Jason wickedly.

All of the questions about Tim’s last name forgotten, Jack walks up to Jason to pat his knee - that’s as much as he can reach.

‘Don't worry,’ Jack says soothingly, ‘I'll teach you to read.’

Jason covers his mouth with his palm, and looks away. His shoulders are trembling slightly, and only because of it Kon realizes that the man is desperately trying not to laugh.

‘I think we can look back on the subject of your father’s surname tomorrow,’ Alfred says, picking Jackie up. ‘This is a late hour and you and Master Damian need to go to bed.’

Damian, who’s been hiding from everyone in the far corner of the cave, tries to protest. But Alfred cuts his protests off with just one look. And also, Jack yawns - hard and long, so much, that it triggers a chain reaction around the room, starting with Damian.

Kon yawns, too. When he opens his eyes again, he catches Batman looking at him pensively.

‘Is the DNA from the glass ready for testing?’ Bruce asks someone to Kon’s right, half-turning.

His eyes are still on Kon when Stephanie answers that yes, it’s ready and already in the system, being compared to Tim’s.

‘That’s a match,’ Oracle announces, as a picture of Tim and Jack appear on the screen, connected by a green line.

‘Run a comparison of Jackie’s DNA to every other one we have in the database,’ Batman instructs, his face an unreadable mask. ‘Start with the costumed heroes and move forward to the allies. Don’t exclude anyone.’

‘Ooh, do you think that he thinks the girl is someone from the JLA?’ Kon whispers to Duke.

‘Bet you ten dollars he’s already figured out who that is, and will monologue about his genius discovery as soon as it’s confirmed,’ Duke whispers back to him.

‘Agreed, I bet it’s a 10 minute monologue!’

‘Oh no, it’s at least a solid 20!’

They both grin at each other and shake on it.

The computer pings.

‘It’s a. Match?’ Oracle says, sounding a bit shaken.

Kon turns to the screen to see his photo there, right next to Tim’s. There’s a green line, just like Tim’s, leading from Conner’s photo to Jack’s.

‘What is this?’ Kon asks, dumbfounded. 

He thinks he laughs a little, and that it sounds hysterical. 

‘Holy shit, holy shit,’ Dick is chanting, one palm covering his mouth, ‘holy shit, Tim,  _ what have you done _ .’

‘They didn’t prepare kryptonite for Superboy,’ Jason says, blinking at the image on the screen. ‘They were not expecting Superboy - they prepared it _for the baby._ They prepared a _kryptonite cage_ for a _baby_! Who the fuck does that?!!’

‘This explains why Ra’s wanted the kid,’ Duke adds, ‘With all of that power...’

‘Well, this means Tim definitely didn’t cheat on me,’ Steph says, her face-ashen pale, and then starts laughing uncontrollably. 

Cass catches her in her arms and holds her. Cass doesn’t say anything, she just looks lost.

There’s a hand that lands on Kon’s shoulder and he startles, shaking violently.

‘Let’s take a walk,’ Batman says softly, and steers Kon towards the elevator outside of the cave.

Kon’s legs walk automatically, and soon he finds himself in a room with big windows, overlooking the setting sun.

‘I don’t understand,’ Conner says, to the direction of the sunset and not to anyone in particular.

‘Do you want to ask me something?’ Bruce asks, his tone of voice carefully balanced, as if words alone can break Kon right now.

‘No, I-’ Kon doesn’t need an explanation of what he’s just seen on the screen. He just. He’s. so.  _ ‘Tim _ . How could Tim do that?!’

Kon only realizes that he’s choking on a sob because there’s a hand running soothing circles onto his back.

‘It’s okay if you need time to process this,’ Batman says. ‘It’s okay, just breathe.’

Batman’s hug is unexpected, but warm. Bruce holds Kon close, and it’s so unusual to have someone who’s Kon’s height hug him. Usually, he’s the tallest in the team, and all of his friends are smaller than him, especially Tim.

_ Tim _ .

How could he have done that?!

‘What do I do now?’ Kon rasps into Batman’s shoulder that he’s stained with tears and snot.

‘You don’t have to do anything,’ the man answers, just as calm as before. ‘We’ll take care of Jack for the time being, and you can give yourself a break and think. Do you want me to call Clark, so he’ll come to pick you up?’

‘No! No, Clark doesn't have to know, at least not now. But I- I need to go. I’m sorry, but I-’

‘You don’t have to explain. This is difficult, I understand. Take as long as you need and don’t worry, Jack will be cared for. We won’t tell him anything about you. You can do that at your own pace, when you feel like you can. Or never at all, if you want it to stay the way it is now.’

Kon’s not sure he wants it to stay the way it is now. Kon’s not sure he wants it to change.

There is a kid who’s got half his DNA, and half of Tim’s. Tim’s last whereabouts before he disappeared were the Labs. Despite people thinking that Superboy is stupid, it’s not really that hard to put two and two together.

Tim’s made a clone, using Kon’s DNA, crossing every line there was to cross. Knowing full well how Kon feels about cloning, he did it anyway - why? What else was he doing in those labs, why did he decide to add his DNA to the clone?

Still, more importantly -  _ how could he _ ?

Kon can’t find an explanation for that, even though his brain is making thousands of those right now, analyzing and overthinking every bit of information he’s remembered from today.

For some reason, the conclusion he comes to is  _ ‘oh _ , _ that’s why Jackie’s hair is curly and not straight, like Tim’s’. _

No.

All of this is too much.

And Batman is looking at him with pity and understanding.

What is there to pity? 

He can’t understand what Conner is going through!

Kon needs to get out of this house and away from the tiny heartbeat he can hear in it.

He opens the window and that’s exactly what he does, flying up, up and away into the darkening sky.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> None of my fics are ever abandoned. But please, think about the situation in the world and about how I continuously tell everybody who'd listen that I'm struggling right now, and do not demand updated
> 
> Also, comments are a great investment into my self-esteem, that can help me with writing - so, you know what to do


	4. Take hold of all you know now

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Batfamily takes care of Jackie while the Batman is trying and failing in looking for Tim.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is very angsty. Tim is not back yet. Jackie is not a fan of Tim not being back.

The following few days in the Manor are full of discoveries about Tim’s kid and Tim himself.

Mostly, the discoveries are made because the family won’t stop grilling the kid for information, stooping down to different manipulative techniques, like bribing him with junk food he’s never tried and offering to watch cartoons he’s never seen. 

That works only because it turns out that Tim was against most sugary foods and didn’t let his kid watch much TV, so there’s really a lot of snacks little Jackie has never tried and movies he hasn’t seen. 

It also turns out that Jack's never been to a doctor. Knowing what they do now, it’s quite obvious that Tim couldn’t bring a possibly superpowered child for a check up to a doctor’s office.

But Jason finds it absolutely hilarious.

‘Oh my god, did Tim have to pretend to be an antivaxxer?!’ he wheezes.

Dick elbows him in the ribs like it’s second nature by now.

Jackie also hadn't really seen many kids his age, because there were none in the town they lived in, and the rare farmers' markets they visited didn’t provide a rich environment for making new friends. Jackie himself seems okay with that, but Dick is completely terrified. As soon as Jack gets out of their earshot, Dick starts planning how he’ll take the kid to the park.

Duke shakes his head, but stays silent. Jason doesn’t, and he and Dick have an argument about how it’s a bad idea, because Richard Grayson, a Wayne heir, bringing a blue eyed and black haired kid to a park may spark the public’s interest. Listening to Jason’s arguments, Dick actually concurs and ends up tricking Jason into taking the kid to the park himself.

Jason leaves reluctant - and comes back in 'I will die for him' mode.

Together with the fondness towards the kid that’s been dialed up to 11, Jason brings new insights on Tim’s life there - rather, the distinct lack of it. 

It seemed that Jack not only didn’t really mind not being around other kids, but also didn’t really consider that an interesting option. From what Jason has gotten out of the kid, Jackie spent most of his time with Tim, following his father to work, around the farm for chores (Jason says that Jack was sure he was helping) and to the town for shopping. To illustrate the point he’s trying to make, Jason calls Jack to the room where everyone’s been whispering, and asks him about school.

‘How about school, Jackie? You probably wanna go? You love learning, and there will be all of those kids.’

‘Not really,’ Jack shrugs, occupied by the cookies Alfred has prepared for him. ‘Daddy can teach me whatever I need.’

Duke has heard something about Tim’s parents leaving him for prolonged periods of time, so he’s more than sure that the guy was compensating for that. He doesn’t dare voice his opinion, though, because he doesn’t want to get in the crossfire of Jason and Dick making complicated, angsty faces at each other.

Alfred steals the kid back by bringing him to ‘help him’ - Jack, apparently, loves helping, which for him is mostly just being with other people while they do all the work. Duke uses this moment to escape, too. He drives to Steph’s apartment to get Cass and drive her back to the Manor.

The news about Tim hit her hard - Cass has been shutting down, talking much less these past few days. She’s been trying to keep Steph company to support her and then to spend some time with Jack, and the responsibility for both has started tearing her apart. That’s what made Bruce talk to her, and Dick and Jason take on the responsibility of looking after the kid. (when they were left alone in the room, Duke had personally promised their sister to supervise).

On their way back, Duke tells her all about the day at the Manor and all of the new details the others managed to get out of the kid. He finally makes Cass laugh, telling her about Dick galloping through the Manor halls with the kid on his shoulders, and Jason running ahead of them, pretending to be a dragon they are chasing.

Duke doesn’t tell her that he himself hasn’t participated in any of the games, but just watched from afar. He loves kids, he’s arguably good with them, his cousin’s kids love him, and their neighbors always ask to play with him, he’s even won over Damian’s good opinion, but Jack… Jack is Tim’s kid, and Tim is his  _ perfect _ ,  _ infallible  _ predecessor. Tim doesn’t know him. Would he even be okay with Duke being anywhere near his kid? How would he even react to Duke being a new addition to the team and the family?

Cass puts a hand on his shoulder and Duke shakes his head, trying to stop these thoughts and not to bother his sister with his problems, adding to the shitload she’s already experiencing.

When they return home, Jackie runs to Cassie and settles in her arms, chittering to her like an excited little bird. Cass plays with Jack for a while and then joins the others in the kitchen, much calmer than before. When Jason and Dick join them, it turns out that the two of them haven't let go of the topic they’ve started this morning - about how Tim, apparently, was inseparable from his son.

‘It sounds like he didn’t even have time for himself!’ Dick whispers to Duke who’s been caught between him and Jason. ‘Like he’s spent every second around Jackie! But that doesn’t make sense! He’s always had friends, he’s always talked about how important teamwork is! Why would he just run away, not even consider asking for help? Why not tell any of his friends, I don’t understand.’ 

‘Maybe because a lot of his friends were dead,’ Duke says and gets an elbow in the ribs from both of his brothers. ‘What?! It’s true!’

‘ _ I _ wasn’t,’ Dick says, and looks very sad while doing so.

_ ‘I wasn’t _ ,’ Cass signs, looking distraught and sad.

‘Don’t beat yourself up,’ Jason adds. ‘If it were your fault, I would’ve called you out for it already. But I don’t think it has anything to do with you. Or with anyone else for that matter - except for Tim.’

‘Come on, Jason, what could it have been then?’

‘Shame?’ Jason shrugs, ‘and internationalized homophobia? What, why are you looking at me like that? Are we all gonna pretend that Timmy making himself  _ and another guy _ a kid is a completely heterosexual, bro thing to do?’

‘Jason,’ Dick says, aiming for strict and sounding angry instead, ‘we can’t just assume-’

‘All we’ve done all day is  _ assume _ ,’ Jason interrupts. ‘So why don’t we just  _ ask _ .’

‘Do you think a three-year-old would know about his dad’s sexuality?’ Duke snorts.

Jason ignores him, the way he always does when fixated on an idea. Dick tries to stop him, but it’s a bit late - Jason’s already called the kid to the room, and they can hear the tiny feet running.

‘Hey kiddo,’ Jason starts affectionately. Dick is glaring at him, but Jason doesn't stop. ‘We were just talking about your daddy - tell me, does he ever maybe have guests in his room?’

Jackie frowns.

‘We have the same room,’ the kid says, sounding confused. ‘But I have my own bed! And I only go to Daddy’s bed if I have my nightmares.’

‘Your nightmares?’ Dick asks carefully.

Jack nods and frowns. Cass reaches out to take his hand and Duke knows that it’s bad.

‘The ones with the scary man and Daddy and the fire,’ Jack explains and hides his face in Cassie’s side.

This time, Duke joins the mutual exchange of glances between Dick and Jason. 

If Tim’s fake death in the fire of the labs in San-Francisco was not a complete lie, if he’s actually been there, might that’ve been the place where Jackie was created? (And wow that sounds wrong, thinking about this lively, happy kid being a lab creation of Tim’s mad genius.) Could Jackie remember that? And who was the man the kid was so scared of?

‘You can go to one of us if you have your nightmares here, okay?’ Dick asks softly, petting the kid’s soft curls.

‘Okay. I also go to Nana and Abuela when Daddy’s not there.’

Jason perks up.

‘When he’s not at home  _ at night _ ?’

‘Daddy has a friend and they have sleepovers sometimes,’ Jackie explains.

Duke leans away just in time to evade Jason’s excited elbow jab. 

‘I am not allowed on sleepovers,’ the kid adds, offended.

‘Oh,’ Dick says, his face carefully schooled into a neutral expression, ‘and where does your daddy go for those sleepovers?’

‘His friend John, he’s our neighbour.’

There's something very complicated happening on Jason's face. Then, a wicked grin appears. He clamps his hands over the child's ears and stage whispers to the others.

'Oh, so sometimes Timmers gets a booty call from next door.'

'What's a booty call?' Jack asks.

Duke realizes suddenly that the kid, who’s related to Superboy and thus also Superman, may not be just a simple kid after all - for all they know, he may have at least some superpowers, like superhearing.

Now, everyone’s doing that exchanging glances thing that Jason and Dick started. However, Jason is the first to find something to say.

‘Uncle Jason will explain to you when you’re older,’ he promises, patting Jackie’s head.

'But I want  _ now _ !' the kid insists, stomping his feet.

Jason says something about 'later' jokingly, but the kid won't let it go. This starts his first massive tantrum in the Manor, that takes both Alfred’s and Cassie's efforts to calm. After, with a softly crying boy set on her lap, Cass signs 'tired' and 'upset' to them as a way of explaining why he did it. Thinking a little bit about it, she adds 'misses Tim' at the end.

'I know the feeling, lil’ buddy,' Dick sighs, taking Jack from Cassie's lap and carrying him upstairs, to his bed. 

So, Duke ends up in a room with a fidgeting Jason and Cass watching him like a hawk.

‘I’m sorry,’ Jason says, fidgeting even more as he says that. ‘I didn’t mean to provoke such a reaction.’

Cass regards him for a moment, her head cocked to the side. Then, she raises her hands.

‘ _ Not your fault _ ,’ she signs. ‘ _ Body too small, too many emotions. Just like someone here. _ ’

She punches Jason in the arm playfully and he laughs.

Duke choses this moment to sneak out carefully. He’s ready to support his siblings when he can, but lately this situation with Tim has gotten out of hand. He hopes one night is enough to emotionally recharge and to be ready for whatever new drama the next day brings.

***

Jason’t equal parts excited and terrified for Tim being, what? Gay? Bi? Or whatever label Tim has chosen for himself. Jason’s probably just gonna generalize it to queer for now. 

He’s excited because there’s never too many queers in this family. He’ll take as many queer siblings as he can get. And the kid! Tim’s kid has grown up with a couple of queer grandmas, how cool is that? 

(Jackie actually made another kid cry when they were at the park. The other kid cried, because he also wanted two grandmas who lived together and loved each other, but all he had was a grandpa the kid described as ‘smelly’, who loved nobody but his pet parrot. Jason couldn't stop laughing even when the other kid’s mom led the kid away.)

And terrified - because what. The. Hell. Was Tim thinking? Was he even thinking at all? Did he want to clone himself a boyfriend, but accidentally ended up with a kid instead? Or did he  _ intentionally  _ make them a kid? 

There were no answers, because Tim was not there.

So.

Yeah, queer it is.

For  _ now _ , because he can’t ask. Because Tim’s been taken by that monstrous, immortal jackass of a Ghoul.

The only reason Jason was  _ here  _ and not looking for Tim was because  _ Bruce  _ was, and he turned out to be surprisingly obsessive about it. He didn't even come to play with the kid - even though Jason saw how much the man wanted to. 

All Jason could do is play pretend with a kid who desperately needed his father and hope that’ll be enough for now. A kid who talked about Tim so much, who asked them about Tim’s whereabouts every morning, like clockwork.

That boy was so obviously loved by his father it  _ hurt  _ to look at. 

It was so weird to think of Jason’s not even 20 years old younger brother, recently believed to be deceased, as a father. 

Was it even okay to think of Tim as his brother? Was he even allowed to do that? 

But Dick said it was, Dick called him the kid’s uncle to Jackie’s  _ face _ , and there was nothing the kid could keep a secret from his father. Dick said Tim would’ve forgiven, but.

Dick tends to see the best in people, even in someone like Jason. Even when they don’t deserve the forgiveness, like Jason doesn’t.

So Jason’s gonna have to wait, until he can ask, and he’s gonna do that entertaining Tim’s kid during the day and spending terrified, sleepless nights in one of the Manor’s guest rooms. 

***

Bruce checks up on all of his kids before he goes to sleep. It’s a tradition that’s been around since Dick arrived, and it never stopped.

(Not even when Jason… Wasn’t there. Even back then, Bruce would still sometimes forget and go to his room, only to leave feeling broken all over again.)

Over the years, as his children grew up and started moving out. 

There are less and less rooms to check up on now.

It’s different today, though. He’s got five kids under his roof - there’s Cass, Duke, Damian, Dick and Jason in his preferred guest room. There’s also a grandkid to check up on, and the thought fills Bruce with irrational glee that is rather unfit for his age. Sure, Tim’s circumstances are not ideal, but Bruce’s never thought he’d live long enough to get grandchildren. The fact that he’s still here to see a boy so alike to his second youngest son is a blessing wrapped in a very, very strange and confusing package of the  _ circumstances _ .

It doesn’t matter, Bruce reminds himself, how exactly Jack was made. What matters is that Tim loved him and raised him.

Loves him.

Is going to continue raising him, as soon as he is found and reunited with his son.

Bruce needs to figure out a way to sleep even less, to spend more time looking for  _ his  _ son.

There’s only one more room to glimpse into, and that’s the room they’ve given to Jack. Bruce peeks into the room, looks at the bed they got for the kid, at the dino-shaped night light nearby, and the distinct lack of a child in the bed.

Bruce does not panic, because he is Batman.

Instead, he walks, moderately fast, absolutely not running, around the Manor. He doesn’t want to wake up the others to join the search, but, the more time he spends looking, the more desperate he gets.

If.

_ When _ .

When they get Tim back, he’ll never forgive Bruce for losing his kid.

Bruce is almost ready to give up and ask the others to help, but then he hears some faint sniffling coming from one of the rooms on the ground floor. He follows the sound to a mostly empty room at the end of the hallway, the one where only one couch is kept, surrounded by portraits and old family photographs. 

Today, the room is not empty - there's a tiny boy on the couch, curling into himself in his grief, crying softly, almost inaudibly. 

He's sitting directly opposite Tim's large portrait that Bruce commissioned a few years ago.

Bruce regrets doing that at this moment - the Tim on the portrait probably doesn’t look like Tim at all, to Jackie. There, Tim’s wearing a suit and his face is too somber for a younger teen he’s depicted as - too much so for a kid he’s always been, fun, supportive and so full of heart. He’s all  _ propper _ and serious and probably looks like a stranger to Jackie.

Jackie, who is still crying softly.

And Bruce is just standing there.

Alfred is right, he needs to sleep some more, his reflexes are lacking.

Bruce finally convinces his tired legs to move and walks up to the kid and crouches down in front of him. Despite him moving deliberately slowly, Jack still startles badly when he notices him.

‘Hey there,’ Bruce tries in a soothing voice, trying to make himself smaller and not to hover over the kid. ‘Hi, Jackie. Do you remember me?’

The boy sniffs, wipes at his face with his palm and nods.

‘You’re Daddy’s dad, but you’re adopted.’

‘I suppose you can say that,’ Bruce smiles wryly. 

The boy furrows his eyebrows, his face looking a moment away from pouting. His frown and round cheeks look so much like Tim’s at that moment that Bruce  _ hurts _ .

‘Did I say it wrong?’ Jackie asks, oblivious to Bruce’s inner turmoil. ‘If I say it wrong, you’re supposed to tell how to do it right, Daddy’s always-’

The boy shudders, suddenly. He sniffs - once, twice, and then starts crying.

Bruce acts on instinct and reaches out to wipe the child’s tears.

‘I want Daddy!’ Jackie demands through desperate hiccups. ‘You promised, you all promised! A long time ago! To get Daddy back!’

Jackie’s in a full-blown crying fit now, slipping down the couch slowly. Bruce grabs him and pulls him onto his lap, hugs the child close, so the boy doesn’t hurt himself with his flailing limbs.

‘I know, I know, I’m  _ so  _ sorry, but I am looking for him every day,’ Bruce says, feeling incredibly guilty.

The boy in his arms doesn’t stop wailing miserably, and Bruce curls around him, feeling sad and useless.

‘I miss him, too,’ he whispers, as he hugs the child close.

They stay on the floor, Bruce rocking the crying boy in his arms - something that’s both familiar and almost forgotten, with all of his children too big or too proud for something like this anymore. He stays like that until Jack’s no longer crying, and then some more, when the boy falls asleep, and then even longer, when Bruce falls asleep with him.

***

Dick Grayson has his own life, his own job that’s not connected with the Wyane legacy and has nothing to do with Bruce’s influence and connections. He loves his job and the kids he trains, and he can fully say that he wouldn’t have it any other way.

Except that now he can’t take too long off work, and can’t stay with his recently discovered nephew all the time, while simultaneously helping Bruce search for his, recently believed to be dead, but not actually dead, younger brother.

It hasn’t even been a week yet, but it feels like a century has passed since Barbara showed them that photo in the Batcave.

Dick’s happy that it’s the weekend and he doesn’t have to work yet, but he’ll have to drive back to Bludhaven tomorrow. He’s going to have to try to spend as much time with his nephew as he can.

A nephew whose dad Dick had failed even before Tim was taken by Ra’s. Tim was obviously struggling with all of the deaths around him, and how didn’t Dick notice? He should have known that Tim might do something… No, there was no way of knowing that he’d do something like  _ this _ , but why did Dick think that Tim was handling it? Why didn’t he check up on him sooner? Why didn’t he insist on talking?

Did Tim have feelings for Conner and thought that Dick would… What, judge? Disapprove?

What did Dick do that Tim didn’t trust him?   
How exactly had he failed his brother?

That thought, just as many others swarming in his head right now, wakes him up at the sunrise. He stays in bed, trying to fall asleep, for an hour or so - but it’s no use. Giving up, Dick drags himself out of bed to wash up and get dressed. Everyone’s still asleep, so he decides to go to the cave to get an early start with the investigation of Ra’s bases.

Instead of it being empty, the Cave contains a very awake and active Bruce, clicking on something on the large computer screen.

What’s more - there is a child in his arms, his small hands clutching at Bruce’s shirt where he’s hugging him around the neck.

‘Shh,’ Bruce has the gall to shush him, ‘he’s sleeping.’

‘I wasn’t even,’ Dick starts, immediately pissed, but forces himself to calm down. ‘Why did you even bring him here?’

Bruce looks down at Jackie, who huffs in his sleep and rolls his head. Bruce puts his hand onto the boy’s curls and shushes him, rocking him a little. Jackie settles down.

‘The information we’ve gathered leads me to believe that Jackie’s rarely been left alone. It seems that he’s gotten used to Tim being with him all the time, and that he can’t stay alone.’

That codependency has been another topic they all discussed all over the Manor, and it seems to be a valid point. But Dick doesn’t believe that it’s all there is, so he looks pointedly at Bruce and crosses his arms.

‘Also,’ Bruce adds, giving up under Dick’s intense stare, ‘I have realized that I can’t just ignore him, no matter that I want to spend every second looking for Tim. I could just. Accept help. Share it with all of you. And spend some more time with  _ my grandson _ , who barely even recognized me today, because I’ve been keeping away from him all these days _. _ ’

That was one of the most emotional speeches Dick has ever heard from the man, but he can’t help but tease. 

‘You mean like more than zero,’ he says, grinning.

Bruce looks pointedly at him, but does not reprimand him.

‘Yes,’ he says instead.

Dick, his mood suddenly up, flops into a spare chair at the batcomputer.

‘I am so surprised at how easily you’re dealing with having a  _ grandson _ . Being a grandpa - like, wow Bruce? You’re okay with that?’

Bruce just hums pensively.

‘I’ve always known it’d happen one day. All of my children are exceptional people and they will be fantastic parents,’ he says. 

Dick looks at him, speechless. Bruce puts one hand on Jackie’s back, holding him in place, and reaches out to squeeze Dick’s shoulder.

‘But I’ve thought you’d be first, though,’ Bruce laughs a little, but then looks up at Dick, pretending to be serious. ‘Please, don’t take it as an incentive to go looking for trouble.’

‘Dad!’ Dick yelps indignantly, blushing.

Bruce’s rambling laugh wakes Jackie up.

(Dick has a memory somewhere in the corner of him mind, something old but almost tangible - of how Bruce’s chest rumbled with laughter, and how it felt to be held in his arms like that, when he was a little boy at it felt like the adult that was Bruce could fix any problem in the world.)

It’s breakfast time soon, anyway, so they take the kid upstairs, to join Damian, as the only person who never misses breakfast, at the early table.

And oh,  _ Damian _ .

Damian’s reaction to the recent events has been  _ something _ . The kid obviously has no idea how he’s supposed to act, and seems more confused than all of them put together.

Which makes him embarrassed, because apparently not knowing how to act in new and unfamiliar circumstances was severely frowned upon in the League, and embarrassment was even worse. So, Damian has resorted to his two default options that Dick hoped they were past now - either running and hiding from everyone, or getting angry.

But now, with both Bruce and Dick present for the early breakfast, Damian can’t lose face - he can’t run. Dick can practically see the boy warring with himself. Finally, Damian takes a seat at the table he almost vacated, deciding to stay after all.

Dick would need to talk to him, preferably alone and in a more relaxing atmosphere. Maybe he could take him to the arcade?   
Maybe there could be 48 hours in a day?  _ Please _ ?

‘Richard. Father,’ Damian greets tersely. 

Bruce hums his morning greeting hum, Dick reaches out to tousle Damian’s hair, and they begin breakfast.

During the meal, their only interactions are limited to asking to pass some dishes. Dick’s sure it’s because it’s just that kind of an early breakfast where words are not needed. But then, he notices how intensely Jackie watches each interaction Bruce has with Damian. The kid’s face is so intensely serious it reminds Dick of Tim trying to solve some convoluted cases.

The mystery about Jackie’s interest in the interruptions is uncovered when the meal is almost finished and Damian asks Bruce to pass him sugar for his hot cocoa.

‘Why do you call him  _ father? _ ’ Jackie asks, looking at Damian, not noticing how the others around them  _ freeze _ . ‘How is  _ father  _ different from  _ daddy?  _ Is that because you don’t hug? Me and Daddy hug all the time.’

Damian splutters into his cup.

‘This is not! It's! I  _ don’t want _ hugs!’

Then, he looks around the table. When his gaze meets Bruce’s, he blushes and looks away.

‘I’m finished,’ Damian says instead, getting up. ‘Thank you for the meal.’

He rushes out of the kitchen hastily. Dick tries to get up and go after him, but Bruce puts a hand on his shoulder and keeps him in his seat.

‘Let me,’ he says softly, squeezing Dick’s shoulder once.

Bruce follows Damian, and Dick is left alone with his nephew. Jackie is fidgeting beside him.

‘Is that one of those things we're not supposed to say to people because they think we can't see it and then they get upset?’ Jackie asks.

Dick stifles a bitter laugh, because he knows very well who that idea might’ve come from.

‘Did your daddy tell you that?’ 

‘Yeah,’ Jack says and sighs.

Dick looks at the little boy who can contain so much grief in his tiny body. Timmy must be an exceptionally good parent to this kid who loves him so much he can’t talk about anyone else.

‘Hey, is it okay if I give you a hug? I could really use one now.’

‘Okay,’ Jackie agrees.

Dick pulls him into his lap and holds him. He’d really love to be able to do the same to Tim - and maybe hold him a bit  _ too tightly _ and scream a little about things Tim kept hidden. For now, this will have to do.

The next interaction between Damian and Jackie is no less of a disaster. 

That mostly happens because Damian had decided early on that he is going to train Jack in the ways of the ninja. Dick has no idea why Damian feels the need to do that, but so far he had tried to rope Jack into training and was appalled to know that Tim didn’t teach him even the basics of self-defence, tried to provoke Jack into using his dormant superpowers by jumping out from different corners and scaring the kid, had given Jack a dagger and was very offended when the others suggested that  _ maybe  _ little kids shouldn’t be given lethal weapons. What’s probably the worst for Damian is that Jack doesn’t seem to be enthusiastic about Damian’s so called training, and mostly accepts the advice and weapons given to him with bewildered compliance. 

So far, Damian has failed at every attempt at training Jackie into a warrior, but he still does not let it deter him from trying even harder next time.

Today, it starts because Jack’s crying.

And he’s crying because he was trying to put on the new pair of shoes Alfred ordered for him and couldn’t. The commotion attracted half of the house, and the hallway soon was full of confused adults, fussing around a crying baby. Only together they managed to find out what was wrong - and it turned out that the reason Jackie was sobbing over the pair of shoes was that the new sneakers had laces and he didn’t know how to do them.

‘Daddy promised to teach me!’ Jackie was weeping. ‘I want my Daddy!’

While the others are looking at each other uncomfortably, Damian sneaks up closer.

‘Stop crying!’ he orders the little boy and that, of course, doesn’t help at all. ‘Behaviour like that is unbecoming of a warrior!’

Jackie stomps his feet but doesn’t stop crying.

‘I am not a warrior, I’m a boy!’

‘You’re not a warrior  _ yet _ , but you will be one day,’ Damian retorts almost angrily. ‘And you’ll need to prepare for it now, and the first step for it is _ to stop crying _ !’

‘I don’t wanna be a warrior!’ Jackie yells, and, surprisingly enough, stops crying.

Damian looks so offended that Dick has to stop himself from laughing.

‘You don’t understand!’ Damian finally says, finding his voice. ‘You’re a kid!’

‘You’re a kid, too!’ Jackie stomps his feet.

‘No, I’m not!’ Damian disagrees loudly, as if him arguing with a three-year-old does not negate that point. ‘I’m fourteen and I am an adult!’

‘No you’re not! You’re not a grown up, you’re a teenager and teenagers are kids too!’

‘Your father was a teenager when you were created!’   
That stops Jackie from arguing any further, because, at the mere mention of Tim, the boy sniffs, sobs and starts crying again.

Cass pushes past Damian and pulls Jackie up and into her arms, carrying him out of the hallway and back into the Manor. The boy’s feet are still bare, the shoes left discarded on the floor. 

Jason, who was there to take the kid to the park, looks as their sister walks away with their nephew in her arms.

‘If we don’t find Tim any time soon,’ Jason says, as a matter of fact, ‘I am going after Ra’s myself.’

**Author's Note:**

> please, spare a comment in these trying times
> 
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> 
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